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HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS

OF THE

TOPSFIELD HISTORICAL
SOCIETY
VOLUME XXXIV
2009

Topsfield, Massachusetts

J. Jan Jansen, Editor

Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2015

https://archive.org/details/historicalcollec34unse

THE HISTORICAL

COLLECTIONS

OF THE

TOPSFIELD HISTORICAL SOCIETY

VOLUME XXXIV
2009

TOPSFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS

PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY

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CONTENTS

SUBJECT

AUTHOR

PAGE

Topsfield and the Shot
Heard Round the World

K. David Goss

Topsfield and the Civil War

K. David Goss

Topsfield between 1950 and
2000

John Kimball

Topsfield during the
Depression

Evelyn Pales

The Colleges of Topsfield

James MacDougall

Brief History of the Ipswich
River Wildlife Sanctuary

Mark Lapin

History of the Topsfield
Town Library

Jan Jansen

The Churches of Topsfield

Jan Jansen

Topsfield ’s Last Remaining
One-Room Schoolhouse

Norman Isler

Maintenance Building for the
Parson Capen House

Norman Isler

The Joseph Gould Bam

Norman Isler

History of the Masconomet
School District

Donald Doliber

124

CONTENTS

SUBJECT

AUTHOR

PAGE

Capen House Evaluation and
Repairs

Jan Jansen

139

Dedieation of the Memorial
to the Witchcraft Victims

Joyce Bergsten

159

Priscilla Capen Herb Garden

Joyce Bergsten

163

Strawberry Festival

Susan Turner and
Helen DesChene

165

The 350^^ Anniversary of
Topsfield’s Incorporation

Joyce Bergsten

171

Restoration of the Congre-
gational Church Steeple

Jan Jansen

177

The Topsfield Town Hall
Clock

Robert Winship and
Norman Isler

184

John Kimball Memorial
Trust

Norman Isler

188

PREFACE

This issue of the Historical Collections of the Topsfield Historical
Society is devoted largely to recent events in Topsfield plus some
articles dealing with earlier times. Some notable events of recent
years include the 350^^ anniversary of the town’s incorporation,
the reconstruction of the Gould Bam on the Capen property, the
founding of the John Kimball Scholarship Fund, the study of the
Capen House and its repairs, and the enlargement of the town
library.

The articles about the town’s role in the Revolution and the Civil
War were financed by income from the Kimball Fund. The
reconstmction of the Gould Barn was the greatest undertaking by
the Society since the restoration of the Capen House in 1913. It
has given the Society a locale for numerous meetings since 1997
and infused a new enthusiasm in the membership through well
attended worthwhile programs. The Strawberry Festival has been
a winner in fund raising and in bringing the membership together
in a collective effort.

Other topics might have been included in this volume; the articles
that are included were chosen by the editor. Many thanks to the
authors of the several articles and to Ann Savage who did the final
proof-reading! In reading this booklet it is clear that many other
projects are available and waiting to be completed or started in the
years to come. These include providing living quarters for an on-
site custodian, converting the second floor of the Capen House into
more of a museum dealing with Topsfield history, relocating and
restoring the East Schoolhouse, etc. It is my hope that enough
Society members will rise to the occasion to accomplish these
tasks!

J. Jan Jansen, Editor
April 10, 2009

In 2004 (gorcCon CoCCege received a grant from the XimhaCC
SchoCarship fund for a study of fopsfieCds roCe in the events
heading up to the Hevohutionary ^ar, Trofessor Qoss's
students did the research and prepared an exhibit which was
dispCayed at Masconomet HegionaC dhigh SchooC and hater in
the down Library, Trofessor Qoss summarized the findings of
the students in the fohhowing paper that he presented at a
Thistoricah Society meeting,

TOPSFIELD AND ‘^THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE
WORLD”

By K. David Goss, History Department, Gordon College

If population is used as the measure of size, Topsfield in the decade
before the Revolution was the third smallest town in Essex County.
It had only 773 residents according to the Massachusetts colonial
census, and only 733 if you accept the figures found in the Topsfield
town records. Wenham was the smallest town with a total
population of 638 and Salem the largest with 5,337. The entire
population of Essex County amounted to a total of 50,923 persons
by 1776. Despite its diminutive size, Topsfield, at the war's
outbreak, raised two companies of militia under the commands of
Captains Joseph Gould and Stephen Perkins. Gould's company
consisted of 63 men, and Perkins's company fielded 47 soldiers for a
total contribution of 1 10 men from Topsfield, or approximately 15%
of the town's total population.

The question is, how did this enthusiastic response come about?
This is the purpose of the recent exhibition undertaken by the
museum studies students from Gordon College: to tell the story of
how it was that Topsfield went from a loyal and conservative Anglo-
American farming community to a hotbed of Revolutionary activity
in a mere decade.

The following infonnation is derived from the research of our
students and has been well documented in the new exhibition which
we hope you will view and study in the next few weeks.

Topsfield's pathway to Revolution begins with the end of the French
and Indian War at the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763. For the
first time in three generations Massachusetts colonists could sleep
peacefully without fear of a French inspired attack. The French had
been successfully driven from the western frontier and Canada, and
England now dominated the Atlantic seaboard from Labrador to
Georgia. It was a tremendous triumph! This triumph was bought
with the blood of many British and Americans and at an enormous
economic expense. England's most immediate concern was paying
off a vast war debt with severely limited sources of revenue.

This was the question faced by newly crowned, King George III,
who had only come to the British throne in 1761. From Parliament,
the strongly recommended answer was to generate new revenues
from Britain's American colonies which, up to 1763, had not made a
significant monetary contribution to help maintain and support the
British Empire. An ill-conceived means of accomplishing this was
advanced by Parliamentary leaders in 1765 whereby a stamp tax
would be applied to all colonial paper goods.

The so-called Stamp Act was designed to only impact colonials who
might choose voluntarily to purchase newspapers, books, stationery,
wallpapers, or legal documents. Avoidance of the tax was simply
accomplished by not using such products. Parliament believed that
those British subjects best suited to pay such a tax would understand
that this was an indirect tax on the more educated and prosperous
members of American society.

This belief proved to be a naive hope on the part of Parliament and
King George III as the seaport towns of North America exploded
with anti-British fervor. Mobs took to the streets destroying the
private property of British government officials and stamp

distributors. Provincial legislatures called for a general boycott of
all stamp-related goods bringing additional economic pressure to
bear upon those who expected to raise revenue. The rationale for
this activity was that the Stamp Act was a policy put into effect
without the approval of the elected representatives of colonial
legislatures. The phrase “no taxation without representation”
became the war cry of these urban patriots who used both legal and
extra-legal means of redress to make their position clear.

To what extent did the Stamp Act affect Topsfield? Actually, when
the Stamp duties went into effect on November 1, 1765, they had
very little direct impact on most rural, agricultural communities in
New England including Topsfield. Those most affected by the Act
were urban dwellers such as printers, booksellers, merchants and
lawyers, not farmers. Consequently when Boston's Sons of Liberty
took to the streets to destroy the recently arrived supplies of stamps,
they did so without informing or gaining the support of the outlying
towns. Topsfield was left out of these extra-legal protests entirely
and not surprisingly, looked askance at such violent and unlawful
behavior.

A case in point involved an incident when one of Boston's stamp
distributors, Andrew Oliver, took possession of a supply of stamps
and placed them in his warehouse for safe-keeping. The Sons of
Liberty organized a protest demonstration resulting in the
destruction of Oliver's warehouse and the ransacking of his home.
The mob then proceeded to the residence of Lieutenant Governor,
Thomas Hutchinson, attempting to tear that structure down as well,
but got no further than the removal of his roof. Damage was also
done to the homes of Comptroller of Customs, Benjamin Hallo well
and Register of the Admiralty Court, William Story.

When Topsfield's citizens were informed of these violent and extra-
legal activities, the Town Records record their complete ignorance
and disapproval of such behavior. They instructed their represent-
ative to the Provincial Legislature, Captain Samuel Smith, to do

what may be possible to alleviate the suffering of those loyal
subjects whose property had been destroyed, observing that “if the
petitioners had suffered by being actually engaged for the good of
His Majesty's subjects in this Province, they ought to have a proper
allowance made out of the Province treasury.”

Later, when the Stamp Act was finally repealed, the Topsfield Town
Records record the townsfolk's “gratitude for the benign actions of
our most gracious Sovereign in granting repeal”. Concerning
financial reparations to the injured Royal officials: “We look upon it
as our greatest honor, as well as duty, always to copy after such
wise, good and just examples— in consideration whereof — in case
the said sufferers (mob victims) shall make application for it, we are
heartily willing to give them as much as our ability and low
circumstances will admit of, provided we may do it either by
subscription or by contribution, as in calamitous accidents by fire”.
So motivated was Topsfield in assisting the victims of mob violence,
that a small team of laborers were dispatched by the town to Boston
for the purpose of helping to repair the damage done by the Sons of
Liberty. Interestingly, several months later, when the mob victims
did indeed ask for compensation and the conviction of mob leaders,
Topsfield's citizens alter their instructions to provincial represent-
ative Smith, warning him not to vote in favor of remuneration from
the provincial treasury. This shift in sentiment is explained by
Reverend James H. Fitts, an historian of Topsfield who suggests that
the town's “patriot freeholders, or free farmers, now thought they
understood the subject (of mob violence) better than they had
previously”. In other words, Topsfield citizens had done some
investigating into the mob activity of Boston and the destruction of
private property, and come to the conclusion that it might have been
justified. To use their own words, it became evident that, their
honors, Andrew Oliver and Thomas Hutchinson were not “officers
serving the best interests of his Majesty's subjects” but rather
enforcing a policy which violated the fundamental rights of those
subjects.

Additional insight into this change of opinion is supplied by the
town records of nearby Boxford which, in October, 1765 noted that:

“By the Royal Charter (of Massachusetts Bay), granted to our
ancestors, the power of making laws for our internal government,
and of levying taxes, is vested in the General Assembly, and, by the
same Charter, the inhabitants of this Province are entitled to all the
rights and privileges of natural, free-bom subjects of Great Britain.
The most essential rights of British subjects are those of being
represented in the same body whieh exercises the power of levying
taxes upon them, and of having their property tried by juries.”

This line of reasoning could not help but influence the folks in
neighboring Topsfield. It emphasizes that although outlying
communities were distanced geographically from the epieenter of
Revolutionary activities, the after-shocks of urban tumult eventually
reached the most rural inhabitants. Despite this fact, it would be
wrong to assume that Topsfield had finally made the intellectual
break with England. It had taken an initial step toward revolution,
but was still essentially a loyal community.

More relevant to Topsfield and Rowley was the immediate concern
for the effect of recent poor harvests and a resulting sluggish
economy which required rural communities to send money to
foreign ports in exchange for neeessary eommodities leaving them
barely enough cash money to “throw off the yearly load of public
tax.” Hard currency was very tight in Topsfield in 1765, and any
British policy calculated to drain more away, even to a limited
extent, would be opposed on pragmatic if not philosophical grounds.

Not to be underestimated in its impact upon Topsfield's people were
the examples of behavior being set by the Sons of Liberty in nearby
Salem and Newburyport. Salem's chapter of the Sons of Liberty had
met the Stamp Act in the streets, burning stamped custom papers in
the area before the London Coffee House. The patriots of
Newburyport burned the effigy of the loeal stamp collector on two

occasions before they forced him “to promise that he would never
make use of stamped paper again.”

Not surprisingly, therefore, the people of Topsfield were greatly
relieved when news of the repeal of the Stamp Act reached them in
1 766. But news of another crisis would follow in 1767, the infamous
Townsend Act which required taxes to be paid on paper, paint, lead
and tea. Once again, this was an indirect tax which was calculated to
be collected from wealthy merchants who imported such goods.
Beyond this were added new policies which provided for cargo
inspections and the stricter enforcement of trade regulations,
especially against smuggling. It was another example of faulty
reasoning on the part of British officials who misunderstood the
fundamental fear of American colonials not to have their rights to
representation undermined by Parliamentary legislation calculated to
generate revenue from Anglo-American colonies. In addition,
British Custom officials frequently used Writs of Assistance to
conduct thorough examinations of vessels inside and out, a policy
calculated to stop a one hundred-year-old practice of circumventing
English trade regulations by American merchants.

Topsfield and Boxford colonists knew well that such a tightening of
the British trade regulations and enforcement of duties would result
in the increase of prices to the consumer, and joined the rest of the
colony in a general boycott, not only of paper, paint, lead and tea,
but of all English goods. This policy of non-importation and boycott
prompted Topsfield and Boxford residents to domestically
manufacture many of the goods normally brought into America from
England. This led to a growing sense of the patriotism of self-
sufficiency, lessening colonial dependence upon British imports. At
a Boxford town meeting in 1768 these sentiments were expressed in
response to an anti-importation agreement then being circulated
among North Shore communities:

“And, although our town is but small, it would do everything in its
power towards promoting every public good, and discountenancing

all vice. Because of the poverty of the town and its situation, the
inhabitants have never been able to go into the use of many articles
mentioned, yet they cannot wholly excuse themselves from the use
of some of the articles mentioned, yet they cannot wholly excuse
themselves from the use of some of the superfluities mentioned in
said votes. Therefore the Town would strongly recommend to every
householder to lessen in their families the use of all foreign
superfluities, and to use such things in the room thereof as shall be
of their own manufacture, and to do everything they can to promote
industry, economy and frugality, and to discountenance all sorts of
vice and immorality.”

For Topsfield, too, the Townsend Act prompted frugality and
domestic economy through social activities as weaving and spinning
bees which facilitated the production of homespun cloth instead of
the purchase of British textiles. And yet, the town was hardly a
bastion of radical political activity. When a convention of North
Shore towns was convened to protest the quartering of two British
regiments in Boston, Topsfield did not bother to send a
representative. This is somewhat surprising in light of the
participation of Boxford, Rowley, Wenham, Ipswich, Beverly,
Danvers and Newbury, neighboring towns which shared many of
Topsfield's concerns and characteristics.

As a community, Topsfield actively supported the non-importation
agreement when the town voted in favor of a boycott of British
goods on June 11, 1768. But this was, at best a conservative and
non-violent form of protest, which saved townsfolk money while it
announced their patriotic sympathies with their Boston and Salem
brethren.

By 1770, the situation in rural North Shore communities was
becoming less tolerable as the clash between urban colonists and
British policies had a ripple effect in the surrounding area. On May
1 and again on June 11, 1770 the voters of Topsfield expressed their
sentiments that the Townsend duties were unconstitutional and

unjust, taxes imposed upon the citizens of a colony without their
consent. They further declared their displeasure with the presence of
a pemianent military force in Boston, and the resulting Boston
Massacre which had taken place on March 5, 1770 between British
troops and civilians resulting in “the murder of unarmed men.”
Topsfield also reaffirms in its town records that it will not
countenance the purchase or consumption of British- made goods.
By 1770, the town was beginning to express serious opposition to
the British policies which had plagued the colonies for the previous
five years.

By November, 1772, the Boston Sons of Liberty had organized a
Committee of Correspondence which devoted itself to commun-
icating news of the infringements of the rights of British subjects in
occupied Boston. This patriotic propaganda was disseminated
throughout all surrounding towns including Topsfield. On
November 20, a letter was received from Boston entitled: “The
Rights of Men, Christians and Subjects” with an attached “List of
the Infringements and Violations of these Rights.” The letters
caused quite a stir in the town, and was hotly debated by the
residents all through the winter of 1772-1773. Finally, in the spring,
the pro-patriot faction in Topsfield asked for the town to respond in
support of the Sons of Liberty and their list of grievances.

Topsfield sent back to Boston a response in June, 1773 thanking the
citizens of Boston for their early vigilance on behalf of all colonists
and heartily endorsing the sentiments advanced by the Sons of
Liberty. Here the townsfolk express the conviction that their rights
and those of all Americans are being violated by the presence of an
army of British soldiers stationed in Boston. It concludes with the
observation that America's British subjects are forever entitled to
their rights “unless by their own act they forfeit them.” The
implication here is that Topsfield still holds to the view that the only
acceptable means of redress is within the bounds of lawful behavior.
They conclude by stating simply that “if these violations and
infringements are still continued it will prove the ruin of this

province, if not the whole continent of America, and we fear the
Kingdom of Great Britain, too.” No explanation is offered as to
exactly what rights of native British subjects were being threatened,
only that Topsfield feared for the future safety of the Mother
Country as well. Clearly, the townsfolk still had a profound fear of
positioning themselves in the same anti-British posture of their more
radical, and violent Boston counterparts.

Not to isolate themselves from their sister communities, the town
meeting in 1773, concluded with a statement pledging its support for
the defense of the province against a hostile foe: "... it is affirmed
that this town in particular will be ready, at all times, to join with
their brethren, in any legal way, and manner to defend the life and
person of his Majesty, and the lives of our brethren-his Majesty's
loyal subjects, and in the same way to preserve and defend our own
lawful rights, liberties and property, even to the last extremity.”

The wording of this quotation infers that the community of
Topsfield was tom between taking too radical a stand against the
English government and its policies, of being labeled by patriotic
neighbors as too conservative. That they were willing to protect and
defend the life of George III, while an admirable goal, hardly seems
appropriate in light of the issues under discussion. Nonetheless, it
illustrates clearly the ambivalence being felt by these country
farmers who perhaps did not feel the full impact of the Townsend
duties as sharply as their counterparts in Salem and Boston.

In any case, the above measure was passed by Topsfield's voters “by
a great majority”, which then proceeded to create its own Topsfield
“Committee of Correspondence”, responsible for communicating the
town's statement of support to the Boston Committee of Correspond-
ence. One can only speculate at the response of the Boston Sons of
Liberty to Topsfield's desire to protect the life of the king and avoid
all forms of illegal protest while defending their liberties “to the last
extremity.”

On December 16, 1773, these same Sons of Liberty boarded
merchant vessels of the East India Trading Company in Boston
Harbor and proceeded to empty them of their cargoes of tea. Three-
hundred and forty-two chests of tea were thrown into Boston
Harbor, destroying the private property of London merchants
attempting to take advantage of the recent passage of the Tea Act
which had been passed by Parliament in May of that year. It was the
lit match that ignited the British powder keg, prompting a series of
repressive pieces of legislation called by Boston's radical Whigs “the
intolerable acts.”

Topsfield's reaction to this crisis was to compose a strongly worded
letter on January 20, 1774, saying that they had voted as a
community not to buy or sell any tea that has, or may be exported
from Great Britain. They quickly add that they “approved every
Legal Method the Town of Boston and Others have taken to prevent
the said Company's tea from being landed, and that they would
consider any merchant continuing to import tea from Great Britain
Enemies to all the American Colonies.” Their endorsement of all
legal means of redress still belies a generally uncomfortable attitude
concerning the wanton destruction of private property by mob
violence. For the citizens of Topsfield, even at this late date,
boycotts of tea were an acceptable and legitimate means of redress,
while, the destruction of private property, even in protest, was still
to violate the King's Law! What is interesting is that while many
other Essex County towns issued statements approving of the action
of the Sons of Liberty, Topsfield did not.

On September 6, 1774 the towns of Essex County, Massachusetts,
called for a Congress to meet in Ipswich for the purpose of devising
a strategy to resist British oppression. Topsfield sent Samuel Smith,
Enos Knight, and John Gould as its representatives. At this meeting
a platform of protest was created objecting strenuously to the recent
oppressive acts of Parliament as well as the arbitrary conduct of
ministers and the hostile operations of Governor General Gage.

This document was then dispatehed to the “Grand American
Congress” then meeting in Philadelphia.

During the following month, the Provineial Congress met in
Cambridge on October ll^*’. It was presided over by patriot
firebrand, John Hancock and was called to keep the loeal
eommunities firmly on track towards confrontation with Britain.
Topsfield again sent Samuel Smith as its representative with
instruetions that he should:

(1) Acknowledge George III as his town’s rightful sovereign;

(2) support and maintain all constitutional and chartered rights;

(3) and resist all the oppressive aets of Parliament, but be mindful of
the reeent resolutions of the Continental Congress. (This was a
referenee to the so-called “Olive Branch Petition” issued by the
1774 Continental Congress begging George III to resolve
differences with the eolonies.)

At Cambridge, on Oetober 26, 1774, the Provineial Congress
adopted a plan for all Massaehusetts towns to enroll and train
militia. The same legislation designated eertain loeations,
Worcester, Concord, Salem and others, as repositories for weapons,
powder and ammunition. Since this new poliey applied to Topsfield,
within weeks of its passage, Topsfield began enrolling its farmers as
citizen-soldiers.

Within this overall eategory of militia, there were three distinet
groups of soldier- types:

(1) The Trained Band consisting of all able-bodied Topsfield men
between the ages of 16 and 50.

(2) The Alarm List ineluding all other able-bodied men up to the age
of 70.

(3) Minutemen, one quarter of the Trained Band, who agreed to hold
themselves in a constant state of readiness to march at a minute's
notiee.

Each soldier, from officer to private, was to equip himself with a
musket, cartridge box and knapsack. The “minutemen” were
required further to drill twice on a weekly basis. Following each
drill session, they would repair either to the meeting house to hear a
patriotie semion, or to the local public house for refreshment at the
town's expense. Far from being a burden, Reverend Fitfs of
Topsfield remarks that ‘To be a private was regarded as an honor:
but to be chosen an officer was a mark of distinction.”

On Monday, December 5, 1774, in obedience to the instruction of
the Provincial Congress, the men of Topsfield of military age,
assembled on common land and formed themselves into the
Topsfield militia. By election they chose Joseph Gould as their first
captain, then adjourned until the following day. On Tuesday,
December 6, they elected Stephen Perkins as their second captain.
They next formed two companies. Captain Gould's Company
eonsisted of fifty-nine privates and non-commissioned officers.
Captain Perkins' Company consisted of forty-seven privates and
non-commissioned officers. This group of one hundred and six
eitizen-soldiers were collectively known as the “Topsfield Alarm
List and Training Band”. Gould's Company then elected Samuel
Cummings as Lieutenant and Thomas Moore as ensign. Perkins'
Company elected Solomon Dodge as Lieutenant and David Perkins
as ensign. All that remained was to establish which individuals
would be set apart as minuteman.

On January 19, 1775, Topsfield as a town voted to comply with the
recommendation of the Provincial Congress respecting the
enlistment of minutemen. The town then proceeded to designate a
time and place each week for the minuteman to drill. The issue was
renewed again on March 7 and again on April 11, 1775 to provide
for the enlistment of minutemen and their schedule of weekly drills,
as well as their monthly pay for two half-days per week of one
shilling per man per half day, drawn from the town treasury. Each
Topsfield minuteman therefore earned a salary of two shillings for
special drill service of two-half-days per week.

Despite this generous bounty, there seems to have been some
difficulty in encouraging enlistments for this elite group. The
Topsfield Town Records note on March 7, 1775 that:

“Voted to give encouragement to such minuteman as shall enlist
themselves agreeable to ye recommendation of Provincial Congress,
that encouragement shall be the same as was reported to be by a
former Town meeting which is as follows: That when so many able-
bodied men have enlisted themselves as amounts to the number of
one quarter part of the Training Band, to do Duty agreeable to said
recommendation; and every man that enlists himself shall be
enjoined to equip himself with arms and all other things agreeable to
said recommendation and shall be enjoined to attend military duty
two half days per week, every week. During the Town’s pleasure-
and shall be paid one shilling for each half-day the Town continues
them in said service-the pay not to exceed two half-days in each
week; and the Captain who shall have command of these men as
enlist themselves in said service, shall at the end of every month,
give certificate to the Selectmen of how many half-days each soldier
has attended duty aforesaid, and the Selectmen shall give orders for
the Town Treasurer to pay each of them one shilling for every half-
day they have spent as afore-said.”

In other words, the town of Topsfield would not issue any payments
until every one of the minutemen, amounting to between 26 and 27
individuals, (one quarter of the 106 members of the Alarm List and
Training Band) had voluntarily signed up and met the requirements
of having provided themselves with all the necessary military
equipment. The somewhat embarrassing fact was that in March,
1775, town treasurer, Jeremiah Averill, had been presented with a
bill for a total of seven minutemen who had already begun drilling,
and were asking for compensation in the amount of 19 shillings, or
five half days of drill during the month of March per man. To the
pragmatic town selectmen, the cost hardly seemed worth the effort.
The purpose of the expenditure was to prepare a formidable and well

drilled military force. No one would be paid by Topsfield until there
was a full complement of volunteers drilling on a regular basis.

The enthusiastic Topsfield minutemen who were already enlisted,
drilling and requesting payment were: Henry Bradstreet, Joshua
Towne, Jr., Benjamin Gould, Dudley Bixby, Joseph Symonds and
Ezra Perkins. But fortunately more than these seven individuals
would respond on the morning of April 19, 1775, when a post-rider
arrived in Topsfield at about 10:00 am. with news of the Lexington
engagement.

On that occasion, Topsfield's farmers were already hard at work
with their spring planting. The Reverend John Cleaveland of
Topsfield, later recounted that for these newly recruited citizen
soldiers, “there was no hesitation. The plow stayed in mid- furrow”
and within the hour many Topsfield men were on their way to the
scene of the conflict. According to one account a number of them
left immediately on horseback— not willing to wait to march with
the rest of the militia.

Reverend Cleaveland, in his first-hand account, describes the scene
in the early afternoon as the Topsfield troops reached the British
retreat along Battle Road:

“Joseph Gould commanded one of the Topsfield companies. When
and where, exactly, they came up with the retreating enemy, I do not
know. Somewhere they found them, and from behind a low wall or
dyke, they began their murderous fire. But their heroic captain
disdained such shelter. He thought it perhaps undignified for an
officer to lie down. So he stood bolt upright and gave his orders to
the company-faced the enemy and the bullets and as good luck
would have it, came off unhurt.”

On that fateful day, Topsfield had managed to muster fifty-nine
privates and non- commissioned officers in Gould's Company which
included Captain Joseph Gould, Lieutenant Samuel Cummings,

Ensign Thomas Moore, Sergeants Nehemiah Herrick, John Peabody,
David Town, Jr., Thomas Porter, Corporals Cornelius Balch,
Ebenezer King, Benjamin Gould and drummer, Elijah Perkins.
During the Lexington-Concord Campaign, they saw five days of
service and marched sixty miles. Captain Gould received one pound,
six shillings and five pence for his services and each private was
paid twelve shillings and one and three-quarters pence.

Topsfield's Second Company under Captain Stephen Perkins
mustered forty-seven men including privates and officers. Those in
positions of leadership included: Captain Stephen Perkins,

Lieutenant Solomon Dodge, 2nd Lieutenant David Perkins,
Sergeants Jacob Kimball, Nathaniel Dorman, Thomas Cummings
and Corporals Benjamin Hobbs, Ezra Perkins and Josiah Lamson.
Their service lasted two-and-one-half days, yet marched the same
sixty miles as Gould's Company.

Besides these two Topsfield companies, there were Topsfield men
whose farms bordered near other surrounding towns who marched to
Lexington and Concord with their neighboring units of militia from
Boxford and Wenham. Among these notable exceptions was Jacob
Gould, a Topsfield farmer whose farm lay along the Boxford line.
He found himself in command of a fifty-seven man company of
Boxford militia at the Concord engagement. Captain William
Perley, commander of the fifty-two man. Second Boxford Company
mentions that he had a number of Topsfield men in his ranks as
well.

Other anecdotes of the day emphasize the patriotic and immediate
response of many Topsfield citizens to the crisis. Richard Hood,
recalled years later that he was plowing in a field with his father,
John and brother, Samuel, and-upon hearing the alarm— left them
standing there as he ran to the militia muster. Asa Gould later
recalled that he dropped his hoe and marched to Lexington in his
shirt-sleeves, while Corporal Benjamin Gould returned to Topsfield
proudly bearing a bullet scar from the Battle Road engagement. And

there was no doubt that the Topsfield troops saw some heavy action
on April 19, 1775 and remained longer than many other militia
companies following the fight.

Captain Perkins's Company returned to Topsfield on April 21, while
Gould's Company returned on April 23, 1775. Fortunately for
Topsfield only a few soldiers were wounded, but none were killed.
On the following day, it was decided that a New England army of
30,000 men was needed and that Massachusetts should supply
13,600 of that number to maintain a siege around Boston. To aid in
the siege, a new company was raised in the Topsfield area consisting
of soldiers from several surrounding towns. This new company
included twenty-eight Topsfield men, seventeen from Ipswich, six
from Beverly, two from Wenham, and one each from Danvers and
Middleton.

The new company returned immediately to military service and
were stationed in the town of Menotomy (later Arlington), near the
Black Horse Tavern. It was from this camp that Corporal Ezra
Perkins would write to his father in Topsfield on June 14, 1775:

Sir,

I take this opportunity to inform you that I am in good Health and all
the rest of our Company, and I hope that these lines find you so too.
And I would be glad if you would dye my third stokins (sic) a light
blue and send them when you send my shirts and fetch me a fork.
And I have no nuse (sic) down here as there is with you. And I
would be glad if you would send me three pound and a half of sugar
and fetch it down when you come down.

Ezra Perkins

Later in June, the Topsfield Company, under the command of
Captain John Baker, was engaged at the Battle of Bunker Hill as part
of Colonel Moses Little's Regiment. It had a total strength of four
hundred men in nine companies. On the morning of June 1 7, they
were marched from Monotomy and instructed to guard Lechmere

Point in east Cambridge near Charlestown. They arrived at their
station near the latter part of the Bunker Hill engagement. By this
time Colonel Preseott had already been killed and his men, now out
of ammunition, had been driven from their redoubts on the erest of
the hill. Captain Baker's Topsfield Company along with the
eompany of Captain Ezra Lunt, were given the task of covering the
retreating colonial troops. A contemporary eyewitness described
their action:

‘This rear guard did good service by their brave and well directed
fire. They effectively kept the Enemy at bay until the Neck was
crossed and the retreat accomplished.”

Sergeant Ezra Gould's account of the day provides a little more
detail of the Topsfield men in the latter stages of the Bunker Hill
engagement:

“On the 17th of June was ordered on guard at Lechmere's Point,
Colonel Asa Whitcomb commanding the guard. After the battle had
commenced for some time, our guard was ordered to reinforce the
troops on the hill; but when we got on the Neck, we met them
retreating, yet kept on till we met General (Israel) Putnam, who
spoke to Col. Whitcomb and he retreated. While on the Neck, the
enemy fired on us from the ship that was in the Charles River, and
the floating batteries came up the Mystic River within small gun
shot of us. Colonel Whitcomb took me in front of him, a little to the
left. He placed me in a situation for them to take aim at. The first
shot struck the ground a little before me and rebounded — and as it
passed — struck my musket in my left hand. The second (shot)
struck the ground directly in front of my feet. The third struck in the
same hole, and made it deeper. I turned my eye's to the guard and
found them retreating. I was the last man on the Neck. As I returned,
I got through a fence on my right, seeing the ground more favorable
to cover me-and when I had gone about a rod, I saw the flash of
their guns, and dropped to the ground. The balls passed over my

back and struck a little beyond me. I returned to the guard and found
them all safe.”

Among the many Topsfield men who saw action at Bunker Hill
were John Hood, Israel Herrick and the former captain of Topsfield’s
Second Company, Captain Stephen Perkins. By June, 1775,
however, Perkins was in command of an infantry company primarily
raised in the area of Newburyport. For all these men, as well as for
the population of Topsfield, the decision for revolution had already
been made. Necessity had forced the hands of Topsfield's reluctant
patriots into endorsing a war against their former monarch and
mother country. There would be no turning back.

It would still take another year for the thirteen colonies to come to
grips with this reality, however. During the interim, the towns of
Massachusetts had been asked by the Massachusetts House of
Representatives to “express their minds with respect to American
Independence of the Kingdom of Great Britain”. In response to this
inquiry, on June 14, 1776, Topsfield's citizens instructed their
representative, John Gould, in a statement that summed up the
community's sentiment:

“A few years ago. Sir, such a question would have put us in a great
surprise, and we apprehend, would have been treated with the
utmost contempt. We, this Town, then thought ourselves happy in
being the subjects of the King of Great Britain, it being our parent
state; and always looked upon it as our duty as well as Interest to
defend and support the honor and dignity of the Crown of Great
Britain. But the scene is now changed, our minds and our sentiments
are now altered. She that we called our Mother Country and Parent
State is now, without any just Cause or Injury done by these
colonies, become their greatest enemy. The unprovoked Injuries
these colonies have received; the unjustifiable and unconstitutional
claims that have been made on these colonies by the Courts of Great
Britain to tax us and take away our Substance from us, have been
cruel and unjust to the highest degree. For these reasons. Sir, as well

as many others that might be mentioned, we are Confirmed in the
opinion that the United Colonies will be greatly wanting in their
Duty, both to the Great Governor of the Universe, to themselves and
posterity, if Independence of the Kingdom of Great Britain is not
declared as soon as may be. These being our Sentiments.

Having thus freely spoken Our Sentiments in respect to
Independence, we now instruct you. Sir, to provide to the Honorable
Continental Congress the strongest assurances that if, for the safety
of the United Colonies, they shall declare America to be
independent of the Kingdom of Great Britain, your Constituents will
support and defend the measure with their lives and fortunes to the
utmost of their power.”

Captain Stephen Perkins
Solomon Dodge Israel Clarke, Jr.

A Committee appointed by the Topsfield Town Meeting,

June 14, 1776

From this point onward, Topsfield would join the ranks of the
American Revolution and invest their men and money in an eight
year long struggle to win independence from Great Britain. The
legacy of the 110 Topsfield citizen soldiers who served is reflected
in the documents and collections of the Topsfield Historical Society
and Topsfield Town Records which still preserve the materials that
tell their story. This is the story which our exhibition tells. It is our
hope that it be remembered by future generations of Topsfield
residents.

Editor’s Note:

The Town Clerk has a number of documents dating from the
Revolutionary War period among which are the town record books
dating from those years. When the Continental Congress voted the
Declaration of Independence, copies were distributed to all the
colonies. In Massachusetts copies were printed in Salem for all the
towns with the suggestion that the Declaration be copied in the town

clerk record books. This was done by Town Clerk Samuel Smith.
Shown below is a photograph of part of a page in the Topsfield
Record Book showing the beginning of the Declaration of
Independence. The text is readable.

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Tfiis study was funded 6y a Xim6aCC ScfioCarsfiip fund grant
to the dCistory Vejjartment of Jordon CoCCege. fhe research
was done hy Tmdy Marsan, a student, and her academic
advisor, Trofessor (goss. f he paper was deCive red hy Trofessor
Qoss at a meeting of the JbpsfieCd J-CistoricaC Society on
October 26, 2006.

TOPSFIELD AND THE CIVIL WAR

By K. David Goss, Gordon College

In 1860 the population of the town of Topsfield was 1,292 people.
Approximately one third of this number were adult males;
approximately 430 men above eighteen years of age. Of this group
one hundred thirty two served in the United States military during
the Civil War. Of these, thirty-one would lose their lives as a direct
consequence of military service. This represents slightly over 21%
of all those who served from Topsfield, making the Civil War
Topsfield's most costly conflict in terms of loss of life. This is the
story of that struggle and particularly the story of Topsfield's men
and women who endured it. (Civil War Document File, Topsfield
Town Records, Topsfield Town Hall)

Before the outbreak of the Civil War, Topsfield had established a
long-standing tradition of patriotism and community pride. This was
based in large part upon the town's impressive support of the
patriotic cause during the American Revolution. Every Fourth of
July, speeches and festivities were held on Topsfield Common to
honor the 103 patriots who had served in the Continental forces
during the War of Independence.

Beyond this, Topsfield had long been known as a community
generally sympathetic to the abolitionist cause. Its proximity to
Boston and the North Shore, both hotbeds of abolitionist activity,
made Topsfield a natural haven for abolitionist ideals. During the
two decades prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, the town had
played host to several anti-slavery rallies, and by 1860 had its own

abolitionist society. Incidentally the banner of this organization still
exists within the collections of the Topsfield Historical Society.

1856 political banner mounted in the Gould Barn

From a political perspective, Topsfield in 1860 was conservative,
clinging fervently to the remnant of the Whig Party until its final
collapse. When this occurred in the mid-1850’s, the majority of the
town made the transition, along with Abraham Lincoln, to the newly
established Republican Party. In fact, the town of Topsfield
overwhelmingly supported Lincoln's presidential campaign in I860
and again in 1864. {Topsfield Town Records, Topsfield Town Hall).

This was Topsfield on the eve of the Civil War, a politically
conservative, pro-abolitionist, predominantly agricultural
community with deep patriotic roots going back to the earliest days
of the Revolution. Added to this was the town's strong Republican
tendency in support of Lincoln at a time when Lincoln, although he
carried New England except Rhode Island, received merely 39.8%

of the total popular vote, and only won the presidential election of
1860 because the American voter base was divided between four
candidates. (James MacPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, p 232-33).

Despite this national distaste for Lincoln, Topsfield loved the man,
and it is therefore not surprising that the town responded
enthusiastically when the new president called for volunteers in
1861. Indeed, within hours of the news that Fort Sumter had been
shelled by Southern artillery, three Topsfield farmers left their fields
and walked to Salem's recruitment station to enlist in the Union
Army.

These latter-day patriots were James W. Wilson, David Casey and
Edward Otis Gould. All three would survive the conflict and return
to their plows by 1865. But these three were only the first
volunteers. In May 1861, less than one month following Fort
Sumter, at the Topsfield town meeting, it was voted to have an
immediate recruitment drive in response to Lincoln's April 1 5th call
for 75,000 volunteer soldiers from the free states of the North {Civil
War Document File, Topsfield Town Records, Topsfield Town
Hall).

By the end of the Topsfield town meeting that evening, one hundred
thirteen men had stepped forward to enlist. For many it was the first
step on a path that would end in death somewhere in the South, but
all volunteers of 1861 were motivated by their patriotic desire to
preserve the Union, following in the footsteps of their Topsfield
ancestors of 1776.

What proved most convenient for many new recruits was the
location of the camp of basic training. While many Massachusetts
volunteers were sent to camp and drill at Camp Meigs in Readville,
Massachusetts or on Boston Common, Topsfield recruits received
their introduction to military life in their hometown at Camp
Stanton, located at the southwest comer of Lockwood Lane and
Washington Streets. The training camp was named after Edwin M.

Stanton, a notable Republican political figure from Ohio who served
as United States Secretary of War from 1862 to 1868. {Map of
Historic Locations in Topsfield, Topsfield Historical Society
Collections, Gould Bam).

It was here at Camp Stanton, along a portion of Washington Street,
that dozens of white canvas tents were pitched and bypassing
Topsfield citizens could witness local boys being drilled in the
basics of military life. It was for many of them a major change from
the rigors of farm life, or work in Topsfield's growing shoe-making
industry, to learning close quarter drill, loading and volley-firing
single-shot, .58 caliber rifles and responding to orders automatically.
Most would never be the same again.

Unfortunately, the eldest son, John Phillips Smith of Company A,
Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, who had re-enlisted after his tour of
duty with the Massachusetts 14th Volunteer Infantry had expired,
was captured by Confederates at the Siege of Petersburg ( although
George Francis Dow believes it to have been the Battle of Gaines
Mill in June, 1862, but this seems unlikely) on June 22, 1864. He
was sent to Andersonville Prison where he died on or about August
14, 1864 and is buried along with a number of other Topsfield
soldiers in the mass grave located at the Andersonville Prison
historic site.

It is noteworthy to remember that the Confederate detention camp
for Union soldiers at Andersonville, Georgia, also known as Camp
Sumter, was built in February, 1864 and was in existence for only
fourteen months. It was originally intended to hold 13,000 prisoners,
but by August, 1864 had reached its maximum capacity of 32,000
inmates. Unable to provide adequate supplies to sustain the prison
population, the Confederate government allowed the Union prison-
ers to starve to death rather than release them in their weakened
state. Of the over 45,000 soldiers confined at Andersonville, over

13,000 died of malnutrition or disease. Of these, five soldiers were
natives of Topsfield. These were:

John Phillips Smith and Daniel H. Smith, both of whom served in
the 14^^ Massaehusetts, and Daniel Hoyt; N. Harrison Roberts and
Henry P. Kneeland all of the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry
Regiment. All died in 1864.

One of most graphic descriptions of this hellish place is provided by
a soldier who survived imprisonment there:

“Would that I was an artist and had the material to paint this
camp and all its horrors, or the tongue of some eloquent statesman
and had the privilege of expressing my mind to our honored rulers in
Washington. I should glory to describe this Hell on Earth where it
takes seven of its occupants to make a shadow.”

The Confederate commander of Camp Sumter, Colonel Henry Wirz,
a Swiss immigrant,was the only Confederate soldier charged with
war crimes at the end of the war. He was condemned and hanged for
“wanton cruelty” in November, 1865.

This brings us to the question of other Topsfield Civil War deaths.
Many Topsfield men made the supreme sacrifice to preserve the
Union. Two of these casualties were Lewis K. Perkins and William
Welch, Jr., both of whom succumbed to swamp fever while serving
with Massachusetts troops on Morris Island, South Carolina. Their
deaths occurred during the ill- fated campaign to capture Battery
Wagner at the entrance to Charleston Harbor. Famous for the attack
of the 54^*^ Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the first
black regiment in the United States Army, the campaign resulted in
over 1,500 Union and only 154 Confederate deaths.

Other Topsfield war casualties included cavalry trooper, Eugene
Todd and infantry private, John Warren Lake, both of whom died of
fever in Port Hudson, Louisiana during the early summer of 1863.
These men had been part of the famous Port Hudson siege which

transpired between May 21 and July 9, 1863. Port Hudson was the
last Confederate military stronghold on the eastern shore of the
Mississippi River. Located just north of Vicksburg, it held out only
five days longer than the nearby city itself. The low lying malarial,
mosquito-infested swamps were nearly as deadly to Northern troops
as Confederate cannon and rifle fire.

Down river from Port Hudson and Vicksburg was New Orleans
where Topsfield artilleryman, John H. Bradstreet died of malaria
followed on June 4, 1863 by a soldier whose family once owned the
Topsfield Historical Society's bam. Private Emerson P. Gould.
Gould was serving as part of General Butler’s occupational force in
the 48^^' Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. His death as well as
those of the three above mentioned Topsfield casualties underscores
the grim fact that during the Civil War disease took the lives of
197,000 Union and 140,000 Confederate troops, while battlefield
deaths accounted for only 112,000 Union and 94,000 Confederate
casualties.

But Topsfield men saw more than their share of fighting. A number
died in some of the most vicious confrontations of the war. Among
these. Private Swinerton Dunlop on December 15, 1862, marched
straight into the hail of lead which destroyed 1,152 Union troops at
Marye's Heights in Fredericksburg, Virginia and survived. This
Union defeat was attributable as much to Union General Ambrose
Burnside's incompetence at to General Robert E. Lee's brilliance as
a master of tactical defense. Later, however, Swinerton Dunlop met
his death in May, 1864 at the Battle of the Wilderness which lasted
from May 5 through 7 and pitted Ulysses S. Grant against Robert E.
Lee.

But it was during the Siege of Petersburg in late 1864 that Topsfield
made its most significant contribution to the war. Here were
captured Privates Daniel and John Phillips Smith and Daniel Hoyt,
N. Harrison Roberts and Henry Kneeland, but most conspicuous for
bravery was Lieutenant James Dunlop who died at the head of his

company during the infamous Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864.
He and his men had penetrated so far into the Confederate lines that
his body could not be retrieved by his comrades and was buried
inside the perimeter of fortifications by the Confederates them-
selves. (Miscellaneous letters in http://members3.clubphoto.com/
james252265/418769/guest/topsfieldhistory)

But death was not always to be found on the battlefield or in the
military hospital. In 1865, two Topsfield veterans returned home to
die from illnesses contracted while serving in the Army. These two
were Privates Hayward Wildes and Otis F. Dodge. Although they
died in their native town, their names are listed on the marble plaque
in Topsfield Town Hall along with all the other Topsfield men who
saerificed themselves in the Union cause during the Great Rebellion.
This list reads as follows:

John Bradstreet; James Brown; Moses Deland; Royal A. Deland;
Albert Dickinson; Otis Dodge; Lt. James Dunlop; Swinerton
Dunlop, William H.H. Foster; Murdock Frame; Wick Glispen;
Emerson Gould; William Hadley; George Hobson; Francis Hood;
Daniel Hoyt; John Hoyt; William James; Austin Kinsman; Alfred
Kneeland; Henry Kneeland; John Warren Lake; Chester Peabody;
Lewis Perkins; Hanson Roberts; Daniel Smith; John P. Smith; John
Stevens; Eugene Todd; William Welch, Jr., and Hayward Wildes.
(Honor Roll Plaque, Topsfield Town Hall.)

But what of the survivors? Topsfield produced two “camps” of the
Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R) which were comprised of
those veterans who returned home. Their legacy is most evident at
Pine Grove Cemetery where cast iron markers identify eaeh G.A.R.
grave, often with American flags placed by present-day veterans
each Memorial Day. But lest we think that these men returned to
civilian life without a thought of their comrades-in-arms, there are
numerous anecdotes that prove the contrary. These men were
brothers in a fraternity forged by war. They would support each
other as long as life allowed them to do so.

The most outstanding example of this tendency for Topsfleld may
be witnessed in the example of Private Joseph Lovett of Company F,
40^^ Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Another Topsfield native,
Lovett enlisted on August 15, 1862 and was soon attached to the
garrison defending Washington, D.C. Later he was reassigned to a
tour of duty on Folly and Morris Islands near Charleston, South
Carolina. In 1864 he was sent with the 40^^ Massachusetts to Florida
until May of that year, then served the remainder of the war in
Virginia where he was captured at the Battle of Drury's Bluff.
During the battle, Lovett had been wounded in the leg, and it was
amputated by a Confederate surgeon. Returning home in June,
1865, he made it his task to look after the widows and orphans of
Topsfield's veterans, securing for them financial assistance and
veteran's benefits as needed. His efforts sometimes required travel
and correspondence as evidenced in a letter now in the Civil War
archives at Topsfield Town Hall describing a trip made by Lovett to
the Boston State House in 1866 to meet with state officials on behalf
of Topsfield's Mrs. Deland who had lost a husband and son, Moses
and Royal Deland, and a Mrs. Thomas Perkins, who had lost her
husband, Thomas. His negotiations proved successful as he
concludes the letter by stating that: “I am happy to say that both of
these ladies can now draw funds under our new State law, but I
found moving up and down the State House steps a deal difficult
with my crutch” {Letter from Joseph Lovett, Topsfield Town
Records, Topsfield Town Hall)

Such was the caliber of Topsfield's Civil War veterans, selfless,
patriotic and without self-pity, they more than rose to the high
standards set by their patriotic ancestors of 1776. The last of these
veterans was William H. Wildes who died in Topsfield in 1930.
Wildes' passing marks the end of the Civil War era in Topsfield, but
the town still maintains several memorials which draw the public's
attention to Topsfield's role in the conflict. Already mentioned are
the veteran graves in Topsfield's Pine Grove Cemetery which
include numerous cast-iron G.A.R. markers, and interestingly a
single Confederate soldier's grave of Private Buckner "Buck"

Taylor, a native of Virginia who migrated to Topsfield after the war
and settled down as a stone mason. His is the only grave of a non-
union Civil War veteran in Topsfield, and one of the very few Con-
federate graves in New England. Similarly, as mentioned previously
there is a white marble plaque located at the top of the stairwell in
Topsfield Town Hall which bears the names of the thirty-one
Topsfield men who lost their lives during the war.

Perhaps most importantly, Topsfield is the location of one of the
most artistically significant, bronze Civil War memorials in
Massachusetts. Located directly in front of Topsfield Public Library,
it is entitled, ’The Wounded Color Sergeant”. This magnificent
sculpture is the work of the internationally known sculptress, Mrs.
Theo A. Ruggles Kitson and was erected in Topsfield in 1914 at a
cost of nearly $8,000. It was a gift to the community by Dr. Justin
Allen, a physician who had practiced in Topsfield for over forty
years. Its purpose is to honor “The memory of the men of Topsfield
who enlisted in defense of their country in the Great Rebellion of
1861 - 1865”. What sets it apart from the standard memorial
statues seen in most New England towns is the scene it depicts
which was suggested by a member of the Soldier’s Monument
Committee, Alphonso T. Merrill. It shows a fallen standard-bearer
handing a shattered Union flag to a passing comrade who raises it in
his right hand while holding his rifle in his left.

Sadly this inspirational, privately commissioned work of art, “The
Wounded Color Sergeanf’ by the end of the 20^^ century had
become badly tarnished, darkened by green mold and air
pollutants. It was in desperate need of conservation. Recently, the
Topsfield Historical Society under the leadership of Society
President Norman Isler recognized the need, and utilizing the
remnant of funds from Dr. Allen’s original bequest, undertook a
professional refurbishment of the memorial. It remains today a
fitting and beautifully restored tribute to all those who represented
the Town of Topsfield during the Civil War.

Jo fin XimBaCC resided in
dojDsfieCd from 1957 to 2001
and during those years was
activeCy invoCved in town
affairs and in the J'oj)sfie[d
JfistoricaC Society. JCe served
as town Moderator for 28
years and was a Society
Virector for many years. Jfe
had a deep interest in
^American history and in CocaC
history. Softer his death his
famiCy estahCished a schoCarship fund for students to pursue
the study of history, particuCarCy as related to TopsfieCd. Jack
shared his historicaC knowCedge and interest in many taCks
incCuding the foCCowing presentation to the JJistoricaC Society
before the XimhaCCs moved to CaCifornia. JJis description of
the town dates to 2000; there have been many changes since
then.

TOPSFIELD BETWEEN 1950 AND 2000

By John Kimball

I have been asked to talk on the history of Topsfield from 1950 to
the present. A lot of things have happened over the last 50 years and
I hope you will bear with me and accept my apologies if I skip over
or do not sufficiently emphasize some incidents that seem more
important to you than the ones that I mention. I invite questions and
comments anytime. I want to thank some long-time residents of the
town: Grace and Yolanda Marciano, Toya Gangi, Ellie Ansteensen
and Belman Carter for the help they have given me.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s I was briefly a member of the
Long Range School Planning Committee, whose principal function
was to project the future elementary school population in order to
plan for additions to the elementary school or, if necessary, to build

a new school. In the process, we reviewed the town's population
back to 1900 and I was struck by the fact that the town's total
population didn't vary by more than 200 people up or down from
1,000 to the end of WWII. By 1950, however, it had increased to
1,409 and for about 25 years it almost exploded until it stabilized at
about 5,900 people in the late 1970s. It has increased lately and as of
January 1, 1999 it was 6,045. So you see rapid growth has been one
of the major problems of the town. I will come back to that.

In 1950 Topsfield was little more than a village centered on Main
Street, Central Street, Grove Street, Park Street, High Street and
Washington Street.

It had a few moderately sized farms and several large estates, most
of which had been built in the late 19th or early 20th centuries as
summer homes for affluent residents of Boston or Salem.

There were just two churches, the Congregational and the Catholic
churches. There was one school for all twelve grades. There was no
full time police department. Bill Peabody was the chief and the
office of the police department was in his home on Colrain Road.
The fire department was staffed by volunteers. Its equipment was
kept in the present highway building, except for one engine which
was kept in Woodbury's garage.

Town water had been installed for about 250 takers in 1949 and the
water mains have been extended in almost every year since. In the
late 1940s the town adopted substantially the same zoning by-laws
that it now has. In 1950 there were 45.15 miles of roads in the town
some of which were still unpaved. In 1949 the town purchased 10
acres of land off Bare Hill Road and established an open, burning
dump.

♦

When the dump was abandoned the site was covered over with fill from the Big
Dig in Boston and became Pye Brook Community Park.

The Topsfield Fair took place over the week of Labor Day and
included pari-mutual betting on dog races. School didn’t start until
after the fair was over so that the local school kids could make a few
dollars working at the fair. Later when Wonderland dog track in
Revere started to hold races over the Labor Day weekend, the dates
of the fair were moved to include Columbus Day. There were 9
graduates in the class of 1950 at Topsfield High School and the
entire town budget was $148,377.83.

1950 was also the Tri-Centennial year of the town’s incorporation
and the chairman of the celebration was our own Curtis Campbell.
The event was celebrated from August 15^*^ to August 20^^ with
special church services, a chicken dinner banquet at the Parish
House, a parade, a baseball game, a country dance, a bean supper, a
band concert, an open house, re-enactments of historical events, and
a bonfire.

From the 1950 Tri-Centennial Parade

By 1950 Topsfield was studying regionalization of the school
system but at a town meeting in that year it rejected a regional
district with Hamilton, Wenham, and Manchester.

In 1949 the State Department of Public Works announced that US
Route 1 was to be relocated to the western part of town and by 1952
a road was being built where Interstate 95 is now located, and the
old Route 1 became State Route 17. Route 1, or the Turnpike, got
its designation of Route 1 back when the new road was designated
part of the federal interstate system in the mid 1950s.

By 1951 the need for additional school space had become pressing
and, at a special town meeting in February of that year, the town
voted to appropriate $250,000 to build and equip an elementary
school addition. This was the first addition to the school which, by
the way, was not called Proctor School yet. It was just the Topsfield
School and although the field behind it was known as Proctor Field,
the school would not be named Proctor School until the Steward
School was built. The addition consisted of six classrooms, an
auditorium, a gymnasium, and a cafeteria and it was completed and
ready for occupancy in the fall of 1952.

The problems associated with the growth of the town continued
through the 1950s, 60s and 70s and I will mention them as I go
along. But for the moment I would like to give you a picture of
downtown Topsfield as it existed in 1950.

First - Main Street was considerably narrower in 1950. Parking in
front of the stores was diagonal instead of parallel. Gifs store sat out
in an open space about where the present vacant supermarket is
with one or two other houses. The common and Main Street, as well
as other streets, were lined with beautiful old elm trees, some three
or four feet in diameter.

Dawson Hardware in 2008

' ^ 35

Where the entrance to the shopping center is now located there was
a large, old house called the Bailey House. It had a chalk factory
behind it and they both burned in 1957.

The Post Office was where the present "Sweets" store is. * In 1951
it moved across the road and occupied the building that now houses
the House of Pizza and finally moved to its present location when
that building was built in 1964. The House of Pizza building
became an insurance office, then the offices of Woodbury Fuel, and
finally the House of Pizza.

There was a town well and hand pump on the east side of Main
Street opposite the entrance to the shopping center. A horse trough
had originally been with it.

Topsfield Apothecary in late 1950s and angle parking on Main Street

There was one drug store owned by Pete Giles sitting about where
Cumberland Farms is. It had a full fledged, marble-topped soda
fountain and a couple of tables with chairs. There was an apartment

On the east side of Main Street north of Central Street

and some kind of hall over it. It burned down in 1967.

Across the road where the salt box shaped office building now is,
there was a row of small stucco stores with an apartment. These had
been built on the site of the Grange Hall which burned in 1940.

There were gasoline stations on each corner of Central Street and
John Gould had a working blacksmith shop on Central Street behind
where the Beverly National Bank is now located.

Garage at the southeast corner of Main and Central Streets

The building that presently houses the Vernon Jordan real estate
office, which was rehabbed by Cliff and Clayton Elliott in 1959, was
a rather dilapidated store in 1950. It housed a barber shop, a
restaurant, the Telephone Exchange, a grocery store and there was a
bowling alley in the basement. The thrift shop was in a small
building adjacent to the north.

Tony Gangi's grocery store was located where the present Fleet
Bank office is located. In 1958 Gifs store was moved to its present
* Sovereign Bank in 2008

site and Tony Gangi built the supermarket.* Over the next several
years he added the drug store, hardware store and other buildings
that make up the shopping center.

Two two- family houses sat where the present post office is situated.
Railroad tracks crossed Main Street just below Park Street.
Passenger trains had stopped running in about 1948 but the tracks
were still used to bring freight to the Co-op's storage sheds on Grove
Street and it was not unusual to see a box car and sometimes a
caboose sitting on the tracks beside the sheds.

On the south side of the tracks where Topsfield Crossing is now,
there was a row of low buildings which included at one time or
another - a log cabin, the bicycle shop, a printing press, and a small
cafe run by Dick Crocker. These buildings were removed when
Topsfield Crossing was built between 1982 and 1985.

By 1952, the Dutch Elm beetle had made its appearance in Topsfield
and the elms began dying. At a special town meeting in November
1952, the town established a committee to look into the problem and
report back. That committee reported at the 1953 Annual Meeting
that of 2,026 elms lining the town's street, and not counting trees on
private property, 134 showed symptoms of the disease and two had
been killed and removed from the common.

In 1954 Hurricane Carol knocked down 17 elms and scattered the
elm bark beetles throughout the town. From then on dead and dying
elms were cut down and burned every year until they were
practically all gone by the mid 1970s.

By 1956 the town had established a shade tree committee and
commencing in that year, the committee planted sugar maples,
Augustine elms, Christine Borsman elms, and other trees to replace
the vanishing American elms.

Dawson Hardware in 2008

Any discussion of trees in Topsfield always brings to mind two
individuals who have had a great deal to do with maintaining the
rural look we all cherish in Topsfield.

John Nutter has been a member of the Tree Planning and Tree
Planting committees of the town since they were created. He has
been responsible for obtaining and handing out saplings to school
children every Arbor Day and for most of the tree planting along our
streets and around the common. As the chief advocate of shade
trees, John has endeared himself to the town.

It seemed that every year from the 1960s through the 1970s and into
the 1990s John and his committee would ask the Finance Committee
to recommend a small allowance for tree planting. Invariably the
Finance Committee would cut the request by $500 or so at the
annual town meeting and John would ask for recognition and ask
that the Finance Committee’s recommendation be increased to the
amount originally requested and the town would vote John’s motion.
He never lost and after 10 or 15 years the Finance Committee would
go along with John’s original request.

The other person who comes to mind, of course, when trees are
mentioned is Wallace Kneeland. In fact, Wallace comes to mind in
connection with almost anything that happened in Topsfield
between 1950 and 1986 when he died.

Over the years he was the Moth Warden, Tree Warden, a member of
the Committee to Control the Dutch Elm Disease, a member of the
Shade Tree Committee, the town Forest Committee, the Park
Department, the Cemetery Commission, and a long time firefighter.
Wally's plaid shirt and green work trousers were familiar to
everyone and he was everyone's friend.

I am sure everybody has a Wally Kneeland story, probably several
* Mr. Nutter died in a tragic accident on January 22, 2001

of them. My particular favorite concerns an annual town meeting in
the late 1960s or early 1970s. The Finance Committee
recommended "no action" over an article in the warrant to spend
about $4,500 to buy a "brush clipper" for the Park and Highway
Departments. After some discussion in which there seemed to be
some uncertainty as to just what a brush clipper was, the Finance
Committee’s "no action" recommendation was voted down, and
someone them moved that the town appropriate the money for the
brush clipper. Again, there was discussion pro and con about the
purchase. Then Wally Kneeland asked to be recognized and for ten
minutes held the town spellbound advocating the purchase. He
seemingly took us on a tour of the town's highways and by-ways,
pointing out where the machine would be useful. We went out
Haverhill Street, down South Main Street, and at one point he
seemed to have us in the widow Perkins' back pasture. When he
finished, the auditorium was absolutely silent. Then Selma Williams
rose and said, ‘T still don't know what a brush clipper is, but if Wally
Kneeland is for it so am I”. The crowd burst into spontaneous
applause and the purchase was voted - I think unanimously as the
Finance Committee voted in favor.

Going back to the population explosion, in 1963 the Town Budget
exceeded $1 million for the first time. By 1965, the town had 4,375
residents. By 1970 it had 5,240. In the late 1970s it reached 5,900
and stayed close to that figure until recently when it went over
6,000.

By 1954 the town voted to add four more classrooms to the
elementary school and a School Planning Committee recommended
that the town join a regional High School District.

In 1956 the town voted to establish a regional school district with
Boxford and Middleton. In 1957 an option on the land on Endicott
Street in Boxford was purchased and the proposed school had been
named Masconomet.

The elementary school population was exploding. In 1956 the
Planning Board had before it 10 subdivisions with 115 lots being
developed. And most of the new residents were married couples
with elementary school age children.

In I960 Mrs. Gilbert Steward offered to give the land on the east
side of Perkins Row to the town for an elementary school. The
Steward School opened in early 1963. By then the elementary
school population, which had been 222 in 1950, had jumped to 830.

In 1960 the town bought a new station wagon which became the
first police cruiser. The annual budget was $678,299.91 and the
Planning Board had 14 subdivision proposals covering 350 acres
under consideration.

In 1963 work began on a junior high school wing, a field house, and
a cafeteria at Masconomet and the Junior High School classrooms
were occupied in September, 1964.

In 1970 a seven classroom addition to the Steward school was
complete and work was under way to complete an addition to the
Junior High School at Masconomet.

Since 1959 there have been three attempts to regionalize grades K
through 6 and all have failed.

I mentioned earlier that in 1950 there was no full time police
department. On April 6, 1961 the Police Chief, Bill Peabody, went
on full time duty but the police still had no office. The state police
lock-up at the barracks on Route 1 was used when necessary.

By 1966 there were four full time police officers and the town
provided space and facilities for a 24 hour Emergency Center for all
the departments in the Town Hall. At about the same time, the
police department occupied one room in the Town Hall with a closet
that served as a chiefs office. It continued to operate in that

restricted space until the mid 1980s when the state police abandoned
their barracks on Route 1 and the town took the building over as a
police and emergency communications center.

The fire department was located in what is now the Highway
Garage. In 1969 the town voted to build the present fire station on
High Street and the fire department moved there in 1970.

Speaking of Hood’s Pond, one of the finest eating places north of
Boston, Jack Hackefs, was on Pond Street just over the line in
Ipswich until it burned in the early 1970s

The town dump was a social center on Saturdays and Sundays
during its early years. In 1956 the Selectmen proposed rules for its
operation. It was to be open from. 10:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M.
Wednesdays through Sundays. It was to be used for brush, wood and
other refuse - but no garbage. A pig farmer made the rounds in town
to pick up the garbage that the raccoons didn’t get. The dump officer
was in charge of operations and he had salvage rights. Wally was the
dump officer for a good part of the time, and it used to be a family
excursion to load up the car with barrels of trash and kids and drive
to the dump and socialize with Wallace and your neighbors and
friends while you emptied the barrels and your kids scrounged
around for broken toys. Sometimes you came back with almost as
much as you took and you frequently stopped at Bob Bishop's store
for penny candy after you left the dump.

By 1968 the dump had become a nuisance. There were repetitive
fires, there was fear of water pollution, and there was an unhealthy
population of rats. And the Selectmen were looking for another site
and preparing to close the old one. In 1966 the town voted to acquire
a new dump site and in 1968 the State ordered us to close the dump.
For a while the town operated a small, closed land-fill next to the
old dump and the days of week-end socializing at the dump were
over as we went to curb side pick up in 1969. In 1990 the town

acquired land off Haverhill Street and it became the site of the
present land-fill.

The town started recycling glass, cans and newspapers in 1971, at
first beside the highway department building, later at the Co-Op,
and now with curb-side pickup.

In 1974 the Housing Authority started work funded by the State to
construct 60 units of Elderly Housing at Littlebrook Village.

In 1975 the town celebrated its 325th anniversary with a costume
ball, a community day at the fairgrounds, a tri-town symphony
concert, a square dance festival, and a reenactment of the 1775
muster of the militia and its departure for Lexington and Concord
perfomied by the Boy Scouts. There was also a reenactment of the
19th century performance of ’Ten Nights in a Bar Room" by the
Village Players. Again, the chairman of the Committee in charge of
the celebration was Curtis Campbell.

The Topsfield Common was entered in the National Register of
Historic Places in 1976.

1978 was the year of the blizzard. It snowed around the clock for
three days and we all discovered we could walk downtown and
socialize with our neighbors en route. We must have had more than
one power line serving the town by then, because as I remember it
we never lost power during the storm or for the several days
afterward when the roads were closed. Prior to that we had one
power line that came down the old railroad right of way from
Boxford and we seemed to have blackouts every time we had a
thunderstorm.

In 1978 a Downtown Study Committee was established and over the
next ten years it planned and executed a master plan which resulted
in the widening of Main Street, the reconstruction of sidewalks, the

relocation of the utility lines, and the elimination of the railroad
tracks.

In 1984 the town voted to lease computers for use in the Town Hall.
In 1985 Cable TV came to Topsfield. In 1986 the handicapped
access ramp was installed at the Town Hall.

In 1987 the town established a full time fire chief and two full time
firefighters. The department had been all volunteer until then.

It seems to me that there were more town-wide social events in the
1960s and 1970s. The Congregational Church and St. Rose both
sponsored public dances. There was an annual Fireman’s Ball and
the Historical Society held a dance every fall.

Incidentally, there are now four churches in town. Trinity Episcopal
Church was built in 1957; the Lutheran church in 1961. A Baptist
church existed for a few years after 1986.

People from Topsfield have participated in three wars since 1950;
the Korean War, Vietnam, and Desert Storm. To the best of my
knowledge there has been only one fatality, and that was a Naval
Aviator named John Lawson who died in Vietnam.

Finally the 1990s have been marked by the construction of the
Gould Bam which has become a major asset of the town and of the
Historical Society.

The town budget for fiscal year 1999 was $7,934,522.00.

Now I know that I have left out a lot of things. For example I haven't
mentioned Maryknoll or the Nike Site, but I leave them and
anything else you want to discuss for you to raise.

Students in Mr, Jervads JAmerican Civics course at
Masconomet 3-[igfi ScdooC interviewed severaC
residents in town in January, igyo in order to
write papers on dopsfieCd in the great depression of
the 1930s, The interview with Mrs, TveCyn faCes 6y
students Jfancy CampheCC and VougCas Vepouy and
the papers written hy Jsfancy and VougCas are on
fiCe in the J-CistoricaC Society's "Record 'Room, "Both
Jsfancy and VougCas received J4. 5 for their work,
Mrs, faCes Civedin town aCC her Cife and was a Cong-
time member of the Society, She died in 1991, "The
TveCyn JaCes interview is reproduced here.

DEPRESSION YEARS IN TOPSFIELD Interview with Evelyn
Pales January 16, 1970

A map available at the library (in 1970) shows the twelve estates in
town at the time when I was growing up through most of the
Depression. Each employed perhaps five or six homes full of
people. For example, the Lawrence farm had a groomsman for the
horses; a cowman for the cows; a chicken man, a chauffeur; a
gardener; a florist; etc. They all had their own cottages where they
raised their own families. The florist usually brought flowers to the
church every week. (We didn’t have a Flower Committee in those
days.) So, in each one of these cottages, the man worked for the rich
man, and sometimes the worker's wife would do the cooking and
baby-sitting for the landlord, as well as raising her own family. The
estate gardener would bring vegetables round to all the other farm
workers, and. the milkman, with an extra gallon, would take care of
the milk for the children down the road apiece. Really because of the
estates, Topsfield wasn't drastically affected at all during the
Depression.

Question: "They were all self-dependent?" Answer : “Yes.”

My father worked over at Wheatland’s farm.. You know where Chet
Humphrey lives now, up the hill on Salem Street? We lived in the
big farmhouse next to Chet Humphrey, after the Turnpike. My
father went there in 1927, so we didn't have any problem.
(Incidentally, I was married in 1930.) 'There were cows and horses
on the farm, but my mother, of course, had to do all the work
involved with the men who worked there.

About everyone in town worked for someone. We didn't have
“occupations”. My best friend's father was a carpenter. He restored
the Parson Capen House. He was a very well known carpenter who
hired maybe eight or ten men. But the carpenters were affected by
the Depression because people were not building new houses.

The rich men did not have on their staff what we call a maintenance
man, but they would hire a carpenter to tear down a pig shed or
build up a hen coop, or something like that. So, the carpenters
worked in the summer during the Depression, but in winter, they
worked for the farms, as did a lot of people.

My friend in Quincy spoke to me about it the other day. She said she
could remember that after her husband got laid off working for her
father, who was a Topsfield carpenter at that time, that Lloyd (her
husband) got 50 cents an hour, no overtime or double time. Night
and day, any of the twenty-four hours, they received 50 cents an
hour. And they thought they were rich. Literally, they used to praise
the job.

When my husband got laid off, he worked at the cemetery for 50
cents an hour for two days. That was $9.00. As you know, he's not a
manual worker. He's a banker and has always worked with books.
When he came home and handed me $9.00, 1 looked at his hands all

blistered from working. I loved him forever after that, to think what
he would do for me.

Q: "Did some people work out of town? Were there jobs around?"

Most of them worked in the leather factories. Danvers, Peabody, and
Salem were full of small leather factories. When they did get laid
off, they worked for the town, cleaning up sides of roads, etc. For
the $3 or $4 an hour road workers now get, they got 50 cents an
hour.

Then, the trains. Were the trains running? Oh, yes, they didn't quit.
There were many, many trains every day. So, if people were lucky
enough to afford the train fare, they could keep going at an out-of-
town job, or looking for one. My husband worked in Boston. The
job he was laid off from was with an insurance company. It was a
big company, but they were kind of pulling in their belts. He used
to ride into Boston from here, through Danvers, Peabody,
Wakefield, Lynnfield and Brighton. North of here, the trains went
through Georgetown and Newburyport, eventually ending up in
Maine.

The businesses in town were very few and all in the middle of town.
There was one gas station, three stores, a plumber, one insurance
man, and (this I gloat over) no real estate office. The Essex County
Co-op hired several men. That's one of the biggest businesses
Topsfield's ever had, a million dollars plus. There was no bank; but
a carpenter's place; Connelly's Sand & Gravel Company; and a shoe
repair shop right in the middle of town (Where Rosenkrantz is now),
where we had our shoes cobbled for 50 cents. Then we had a
butcher. We didn't call them meat markets, they were the butchers.
He would have meat hanging out back and go there to cut it off for
you. These shops might employ two or three men. The grocery
store hired from four to five men.

Q: "Are prices in the grocery store much greater and were there
fewer items?"

While I was growing up before the Depression, say from 1920-1930,
Topsfield was a poor town and it always was. During that time,
prices didn’t get any higher so I know the price of some of the
things. The best roast beef you could get was 25 cents a pound. I can
remember we had company one Sunday, and Les said "What are you
going to have for dinner?" I said I was going to price the roast beef.
But it was too high. Hamburger was two pounds for 25 cents. Sirloin
steak, boneless, went for 35 cents; eggs were 20 cents; and I imagine
milk was about a dime.

Of course, those were the days before fuel oil. Everybody used coal
or wood in their furnaces. Incidentally, most poor people in town,
including my folks, who were poor, believe me, had gardens where
they raised their own vegetables, and they had wood lots. They
could go up to the other end of town and chop their wood if they
couldn't afford coal. Many families had small gravel pits out back.
They would sell the gravel to the town and make a little money that
way. Practically everyone had at least one cow and a bunch of
chickens. So they had milk, eggs, and fowl, and nobody starved.
We managed with what we had and made do. We just made sure
that everyone was taken care of.

I went through the records of Public Welfare, which was called the
Poor and Charity then. In 1929, Topsfield spent $2220. My
grandmother collected something like $ 1 0 a month from it, and you
would have thought she was asking for charity. In those days, there
was no Social Security or other socialized agencies. If you had no
money, you had to apply for assistance. From that 1929 cost of
welfare ($2,220), the figure rose by 1937 to $8,400. That's eight
years. By 1939, it was up to $18,000. That included old age
assistance and the food, fuel, and clothing given to people who were
hardup. Between 1939 and 1940, the cost went down. I think
because the government knew there was a war coming. They had

started defense work. The shipyards in Quincy had started up and
many people left their common little makeshift jobs to work in
defense plants where they could earn $100 to $125 a week. They
thought they were millionaires. As a matter of fact, I was jealous
because my husband had never learned to hammer a nail.

The Board of Public Welfare gave out food and coal slips. If you
didn’t have the money and needed coal, you applied for a coal slip.
My cousin’s husband went to the house of a member of the Board
when he had no money for coal. He drove there in his car, which
was essential to have in those days if you worked out of town. He
was asked how he got there. When he replied he drove, he was
turned away without the slip. A month later, he walked up Summer
hill to ask for the coal slip. That time, when he was asked how he
got there and said he walked, he got the slip. With the food slips,
you could go to the grocery store and get $5 worth of groceries
every other week, or whatever the Public Welfare felt like giving
you. They didn’t listen to any excuses. You had to tell them the
truth. And that was it.

Q: ”Is this how the majority lived?” A ‘"No.”

I still think the majority of people worked on the estates or farms.
After them came the carpenters. In 1929, there were 348 men in
town over 21. That isn’t very many, of course. Many of them
worked on estates. Many of them were old, over 65, even 75. Some
were physically unable or sick.

In those days, if people lived in Topsfield for so many years and
then moved away, Topsfield was responsible for them. For instance,
if 15 people in 5 years moved from Topsfield to Salem, Topsfield
was responsible for their public welfare. They have changed all that
now, of course.

You can see that Public Welfare declined just about the time defense
work started up in 1940, for by that time the clothing mills in Salem
were going strong, along with shoe factories and General Electric.
Then there was no Sylvania, no Bell Labs, Avco, etc. But G.E. was
going strong. They had a terrible time during the Depression and
had to lay off most of their employees. If you think that this last
strike was bad, you should have seen GE then.

You have probably come across the projects. W.P.A.— that was
Works Progress Administration; then is changed to P.W.A., Public
Works Administration; later it was know as Civil Works
Administration. The P.W.A. put unemployed writers and artists to
work. We had writers and researchers working at the Library on
historical records. A group of them wrote a history of Essex
County.

Comment: “Then, of course, the Library was built partly with
P.W.A. funds”

Comment: “Yes, sir. If that library were to be built today, it would
cost four times what it did then.”

In those days, working on the roads and for the town was a godsend.
Many extra workers were put on to build roads and bridges. They
built Batch's bridge in 1935. That would never have been done
otherwise. Just beyond the cemetery, on the same side, two cement
posts mark Bare Hill Park. That was built with Federal funds.
Everyone said it was just a bunch of foolishness, that “nobody will
ever use it for a park, stuck away up there”, but I understand the Boy
Scouts use it. Well, it cost thousands of dollars, but the government
spent it to give work, and it worked out all right. They painted the
Town Hall and built tennis courts at school where the parking lot
now is located, on the left. That was after Proctor School was built.
Another project financed by Federal funds was cleaning up the
damage done to the cemetery after the 1938 hurricane.

The C.C.C., which stands for Civilian Conservation Corps, paid
young men who couldn't get jobs to cut down trees. These young
men and boys who had practically no education or skills lived in
camps in the woods and were paid $25 a month and their keep.
Twenty dollars of that was mailed to the parents. The youths were
allowed $5 to pay for laundry and other expenses.

In 1929, as I said before, there were 348 men over 21 in town, living
in 324 homes. There was almost one home for each man, which is
unusual. In 1932, there were 573 automobiles here. Thereafter, they
stopped putting that information in the Town Report; so I can't tell
you how many people may have later lost their cars because they
couldn't keep up the payments.

People lost their houses. That was the time my father had $400 in
the bank. Roosevelt was President and declared a bank mor-
atorium. Many of the banks never could open again. My father lost
the $400 deposit and went broke. At the time the banks closed, Mr.
Roberts, the Town Treasurer, couldn't get any money to pay the
town employees. Well, that meant that some people would starve.
So he went to Boston to a bank that he knew and got $ 1 ,000, which
he carried home with him on the train to pay the town employees.

You might be interested in the salaries paid at that time. Mr.
Pethybridge who was Principal of the old Academy, taught two
subjects at a yearly salary of $2,700 from 1928 to 1930. He got a
raise in 1931 to $2.750.but in 1932 he went back to $2,650, and that
was where he stayed, through 1936 anyway. From that time on,
they stopped putting salaries in the Town Report. The highest paid
teacher in 1929 received $1,700. She too had to take a cut in 1932
to $1,500. And that was what she was paid in 1936. Poor old soul,
she is in a rest home down in Hyannis. Now her old school pupils
are trying to do something for her. She’s on public welfare.

Q: “How was that for salary?” A: “They thought it was good,
but it probably was a little tight when they got cut.”

That figure of 324 homes in 1929 didn't vary much. By 1940, the
total number was 336. You can see how little building there was in
those eleven years. Incidentally, there are 1,231 homes in Topsfield
now.

In 1940, this I know, we paid the minister $25 a week. He had three
children, and we gave him a parsonage. But, believe me, it wasn't
the nice place it is now. I had a baby in 1930 at a cost of $4 a day
for the hospital and $60 for the doctor. Last year, Les and I were in
the hospital at the same time. We paid $67 each per day for the
hospital.

My father, even before the Depression, earned $48 a week, he and
his two horses. That was considered pretty darn good, 50 cents per
hour for him and 50 cents for his two horses. If one horse got sick
and he couldn't take it out, he earned darned little.

In 1930, the population was 930; in 1960, 1,409. That shows how
little the town grew in thirty years. But in the six years from 1960
to 1966, it went up to 4,375, a big jump.

My daughter was in the first graduating class of Masconomet. She
started school in the original Proctor School which had none of its
later additions. She began in one room and just kept going upstairs,
and graduated from there, too.

In 1942 (This had nothing to do with the Depression), everyone
knew there was going to be a war. Civil Defense, the State Guard,
rationing, and defense work were all in full swing. So by that time,
to my mind, the town had prospered. Like other white collar
workers, my husband didn't earn any more, but lots of people did.
Many townspeople were employed constructing sidewalks, fixing
drains, etc.

Q: “There was still a lot of unemployment in 1941?”

Yes, if it hadn't been for the war, the Depression would have kept
right on. That's why in 1940 and 1941 things began to pick up a
little bit. The people started to work at the shipyards and made good
wages. The business men were very lenient. You didn't get an IBM
card saying ‘‘You owe us $413”, or something like that. I can
remember my father getting a bill from the plumber for something
like $150 for work done on the old place when the furnace blew up.
Very lenient, our small town looked out and really cared for all its
people.

You asked previously about the rich people and how they were
affected. They may have pulled in their belts a little bit, but nobody
jumped out of a window.

Q: “What did you do in your spare time?”

During the Depression, we still had fun. We went over to our
neighbors and played cards. We had plays at the Town Hall, which
was always the social center of the town. Dances there too. The
firemen and the policemen and other groups had dances. There were
church gatherings: socials, church suppers, box parties, and things
like that. I remember going to a friend's house during that time.
Four or five couples, perhaps, would chip in 50 cents and we would
live high, wide and handsome on lobster, steamed clams, and four or
five bottles of beer. Have a wonderful time. Nowadays, I don't
even look at lobster— can't afford it.

Q: “You were telling us earlier a bit about Proctor's giving the town
land for the school?”

He had said he would give a brand new school to Topsfield. This
was before the Depression, in 1927 or 28. Mr. Proctor said he
would get plans drawn up, which he did. There's a picture of the
architect's drawings. But the town wouldn't take the school and
declined the offer, didn't want any strings attached . You don't want
to take something and have someone tell you how you'll fix it. And,

you don't want to take something for nothing, anyway. By then, he
was really pulling in his horns a little bit. So, by the time the town
had decided to take it, all he could afford was the land. Eight acres
of good land. Townspeople ended up saying “Proctor's land” and
found it just as easy saying “Proctor School”, so Proctor School it
became.

Mr. Proctor hired a large and varied crew of workers. Nowadays,
you might call some of them no-good middle class. Of course, my
father was one of eight children. They were all horse traders. And
you never made any money being a horse trader, trying always to
gyp the next guy before he gyped you.

When Mr. Proctor built up that estate, he had men brought over
from Italy who knew about everything he wanted done. They were
noted for having “green thumbs” and hand-picked practically every
weed. Tony Gangi's father was one, though he worked at the
neighboring Penticost estate (later Maryknoll).

Five thousand acres (with the many houses there) belonged to Mr.
Proctor. This included all the property from way over to Steward
School; all of Perkins Row; the land in Topsfield now owned by
Audubon Society's Wildlife Sanctuary; and all the way out to town
by way of Howlett Street. He imported trees, shrubs, and plants
from all over, even China. Every item was cataloged, cross-
referenced, and notes added as to whether it might be expected to
live or die. Every planting was tagged, tended, and watched for
growth. It was really something. I can't think of anything else. But I
do say that, during the Depression, it was because of the estates and
the town and its people looking out for their own (with some few
odd jobs) that people got along. Nobody starved.

In the early days of Topsfield the Aver ill family lived in the area that
is now the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary. Mr. MacDougall
presented this paper to a Topsfield men ’s discussion group.

THE COLLEGES OF TOPSFIELD

By James MacDougall

In Lawrence Bond’s book The Houses and Buildings of Topsfield,
Massachusetts, he refers to the Averill houses that were located off
of Perkins Row without much detail ^ . It is my intent to add detail
to this ghost town within a town that is known as the Colleges.

The Colleges of Topsfield are located wholly within Massachusetts
Audubon’s Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary and in the land owned
by Lawrence Coolidge on Perkins Row. The Colleges, as named by
early inhabitants of Topsfield, is the Averill family settlement of
New Meadows beginning in 1667 and remained active up to 1820
when the colony began to decline. The last building burned down in
1891. There exist 6 cellar holes where houses once stood and the
mill site is occupied by a relatively contemporary cottage, post
1891.

William Averill, born in Oxford, England, landed in Ipswich around
1637 with his wife, Abigail Hinton and six of their children. In
1663, ^ William’s son William Averill moved his family to ’’New
Meadows” or Topsfield and bought 100 acres south of the
Boardman farm and west of the Perkins’ Mill on Mile Brook. The
house is no longer standing and I have yet to locate the cellar hole
which is on the north end of Averill Street and across the street from
his son, John’s house which is still standing at 19 Averill Street.
William’s sister Sarah married John Wildes and was later hanged as
a witch during the Witch Trials of Salem. Her son Ephraim was the
local constable and he would not bring her to trial. He testified on
her behalf at the trial to no avail.

The Averills were one of the few families in town that received a
newspaper and that maintained an extensive library. The term
"Colleges" reflects the respect bestowed upon the Averills for their
intellect and industry by their contemporaries. There are many
accounts of people in Topsfield traveling to the Colleges to gain

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Cellar Hole near Avanii Street floase

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b. 6 Sep 1700, Toosfielo. MA
d. 17.AtJ8 1781
& Hannah Wildes
d 22 May 1738
m. 24 Mov 1743

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jb. 17 A»g 1702, Topsfield

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advice on an issue of the day. This story is covered in many
histories of Topsfield and it is not my intention to repeat it here.

See S. Gertrude Bradsteet’s account The Cradle of the Averill
Family. ^

As with any fertile family in New England, it is easy to look back
in time and become confused by the reuse of given names in
subsequent generations. In this case, William is used for many
generations after the first and it becomes difficult to keep track of
them without a system. I used the “Genealogy of the Averills”
from the 1900 edition of the Essex Antiquarian. I entered the
information in to a genealogical software database to develop the
descendent chart to keep the family history organized. Many of the
Averills remained in Topsfield but others moved to Middleton and
beyond. I have done my best to locate the cellar holes within the
Colleges and attribute them to the appropriate owners.

NothoiikU Avei'iil (. tklciF Hoic’ ctrcci / 693. pkof ogriiphed 200H

There are six eellar holes that are obvious in addition to the site of
the saw mill which is occupied by a cottage presumably built by
Thomas Proctor and which shows on a plan drafted in 1947. The
oldest cellar hole is that of Nathanial Averill and his wife, Sarah
Hewlett. Nathanial established the second mill in Topsfield in
1 693 on Mile Brook and built his house across the brook at the toe
of an esker. The cellar hole is in a grove of locust trees. The hole,
chimney base and a nearby depression, possibly making the
outhouse or well, are all very evident. Black locust trees may have
been planted near houses in colonial times to redirect lighting away
from buildings. All of the cellar holes within the Colleges are
surrounded by Black Locust trees and including the Bradstreet
cellar hole south of the Colleges.

Location of the Averill houses in the Ipswich River Sanctuary area

The Nathaniel Averill cellar hole measures approximately 40 feet
by 18 feet. Its long side is oriented to the south-southeast. The
Daniel Averill is similarly sized and situated as is the Luke Averill

Cellar hole. The later also has an obvious interior wall in the
northeast comer which may be a root cellar. The cellar holes for
the Jacob, Solomon Averill and Granny Averill Bickford are all
small and approximately 15 feet by 15 feet. The Solomon and
Jacob Averill houses still exist in other parts of town and their
exact measurements can be acquired directly.

References:

1. C. Lawrence Bond, Houses and Buildings ofTopsfield,

Massachusetts page 190.

2. The Essex Antiquarian, Volume IV. Salem, MA, September

1900. No. 9. Averill Genealogy

3. J.H. Towne, The Houses and Buildings ofTopsfield,

Massachusetts 1902, page 84.

The greatest impact on the area now owned hy the
Massachusetts JAudiiBon Society was that of
Thomas T. Troctor. 3-[e Began purchasing Band in
TopsfieCd in 1898 and at the time of his death in
1949 owned 47% of aCC the Band in TopsfieBd. C.
Lawrence Tond wrote an articBe describing Mr.
Tractor’s doings in TopsfieBd in yoBume XXXII of
the TopsfieBd TBistoricaB Society CoBBections in 1974-
This Brief summary is taken from an unpuBBished
work By Mark Lapin, re-edited in 1997, who Based
much of his work on the Tond articBe.

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE IPSWICH RIVER
WILDLIFE SANCTURY

Bradstreet farm house

When Mr. Proctor’s father died he and his mother moved from
their Boston residence to the Bradstreet farm house, the present
Audubon headquarters building. When his mother died he moved

again to a house on Perkins Row, no longer existing, to be closer to
his greenhouses. He never married. Proctor's legacy included the
once-impressive arboretum on Bradstreet Hill, greenhouses, polo
fields, a public water supply system in use until at least 1973, and
the Rockery.

Proctor inherited his wealth from his father whose fortune was
presumably made in the leather importing business. Although he
never worked in the family business, Proctor retained an office in
Boston and traded stocks and bonds. He remained a bachelor
throughout his life, and his real passion was horticulture. Besides
his interest in the perennials that he planted on Bradstreet Hill, he
studied orchids in his greenhouses which were located west of
Perkins Row slightly north of Bradstreet Lane.

The labor force required to create the roads, arboretum, polo fields,
and Rockery, and to maintain a large estate, was primarily supplied
by Italian immigrants. Proctor is reported to have been moderately

Some of Mr. Proctor’s immigrant workers

generous and a kind man to his employees. It is reported that in
the early days, anyone who worked there was given a bicycle;
when anyone got to the point where he could afford a “Model T”,
Tom had a garage built for him. In the end everyone who had been
employed for two years received $500 and some of those who had
been with him for long periods received $ 100 for each year of
service.

The arboretum and Rockery were begun in 1 902 with the advice of
Professor John George Jack, first Professor of Dendrology at
Harvard University. A Japanese landscape architect, Shintare
Anamete, was hired to design and oversee construction of the
Rockery and the Japanese garden at the site of the now abandoned
wildflower garden.

The construction of the Rockery and the arboretum road were very
labor-intensive, although no reports of an actual number of
laborers were uncovered. The Rockery was completed in nine
years, with the sweat of many men and mules hauling boulders

from Byfield and Rowley (a two-plus day trip with a big rock) and
positioning them just so in the Rockery.

During the early winter, flatcar loads of exotic oriental shrubs and
trees arrived at the Topsfleld Railroad station and were carried to
the Proctor estate. The ground had been readied for them, with
loads of salt marsh hay having been spread as mulch. This was
burned; the frost was thawed by the heat and a great planting took
place.

Proctor was an acquaintance of Charles Sprague Sargent, Director
of the Arnold Arboretum and one of the most knowledgeable tree
experts ever. Sargent helped finance the expeditions of Ernest
(Chinese) Wilson to the Far East. Thus Proctor received many
collected specimens and planted them on Bradstreet Hill and in the
Rockery. Apparently one of his goals was to plant a specimen of
every hardy North American tree on his estate. Proctor himself
traveled to Mexico and the Amazon searching for exotic plants.

He planted an unknown number of species, varieties, and cultivars
of trees and shrubs on his estate. The privately-published
Catalogue of Trees and Shrubs, often thought to be a list of
Proctor’s plantings, was in fact compiled by Professor Jack as a list
of species and varieties described in Koehne's Deutsche
Dendrologie and printed as the basis for the arboretum. That is,
the "Catalogue" is a list of plants that could potentially be planted,
and not a list of the actual plantings. Unfortunately, Proctor left no
arboretum documentation, no records of how many specimens
were planted, planting locations, or planting survival.

On a personal note, Proctor enjoyed displaying his pursuits to the
public. The estate was open on the weekends to recreators
traveling on foot, horseback, or by carriage, and he even hired
someone to drive people around Arboretum Road to see his
growing arboretum. Proctor himself proudly rode atop a horse
surveying his grounds and monuments. Generous with his wealth,
he owned a special truck that was used year round to make daily

deliveries of flowers and plants from his greenhouses to friends
and relatives in Boston. His niece remembered him as a perfect
gentleman, generous and devoted in all his cultural and
philanthropic endeavors. For his family and friends he shared his
trotters and buggies to race down the old deserted Hamilton-
Wenham-Essex Railroad bed. He provided food and canoes for
Ipswich River picnics; ice boats to speed over the frozen marshes;
snowshoes and cook-outs for long winter hikes through the woods;
huts for protection while fishing through the ice; shelters, grain,
and hay for the wildlife; pails for collecting maple syrup.

Thomas Proctor certainly left his mark on Topsfield. When he
died, he left no bequests to charitable organizations.

Massachusetts Audubon Society bought the bulk of the Ipswich
River Wildlife Sanctuary from the Proctor Estate for $50,000. In
the early years of the sanctuary, director Elmer Foye devoted much
energy to maintaining the Proctor arboretum as a managed
landscape. When directorship and conservationist attitudes toward
landscapes changed, the arboretum was left to grow wild. In
scattered spots around the hill and at the Rockery, one can stumble
upon some very interesting, often confounding, exotic plants.
Fortunately, Proctor's manipulations on the present sanctuary lands
other than Bradstreet Hill were kept to a minimum, for he is said to
have enjoyed the native forest as much as his cherished specimen
trees.

1994 'was the hicentenniaC year for the TojisfieCcC T'own
Lihrary and an audio-visuaC program was prepared to
ceCehrate the event jzi few years Cater the Cihrary
underwent a major reconstruction after which the
presentation was modified to incCude the changes, dhe

revised program was shown for severaC days in 1999. dhe

text of that presentation, aCong with a few pictures, is
reproduced in the foCCowing articCe,

HISTORY OF THE TOPSFIELD TOWN LIBRARY

By Jan Jansen

The Topsfield Library Society was founded on March 20, 1794
under the leadership of Reverend Asabel Huntington, pastor of the
Congregational Church. Each member of the new Society was
assessed 20 shillings for the purchase of books. It was agreed to
keep the Library within one mile of the 1759 Meeting House, and
to have it open one afternoon a month for the circulation of books.
There were 80 original members including 3 women. One curious
provision in the by-laws was that books had to be taken out in
alphabetical order and that a requested book should always go to
the highest bidder present. 67 volumes were purchased as follows:
20 history, 13 religion, 15 travel, 10 literature, 2 biography, 1
agriculture, and 6 philosophy. A bookcase was purchased in 1796
along with leather to cover the books. From 1973 to 1999 the
bookcase and the books were kept in an upstairs room at the
Parson Capen House. They are now on display in the Library.

The Library was incorporated in 1805 and the by-laws were
revised. In those days the bookcase and its contents were kept at
the home of the librarian.

Mr. Huntington died in 1813 and without his active influence,
interest in the library waned. There were no Library meetings
between 1814 and 1824 and the membership dwindled to 15
proprietors. Then interest in the Library was rekindled by

The original books in thel796 bookcase

Rev. Rodney Dennis of the Congregational Church. For the next
few years the bookcase was kept at 40 South Main Street and then
at 1 1 Prospect Street.

In those days it was hard to sustain interest and several attempts
were made to sell the collection, although not carried out. In 1854
when the Topsfield Academy was flourishing, the Library was
transferred there. During the next decade or two, parallel efforts to
create libraries were made by groups interested in agriculture, the
local schools, the Topsfield Athenaeum Association, and the
Ladies Society of the Congregational Church.

Finally, in 1875, a meeting was convened to establish a Free Town
Library. The effort was spearheaded by Messrs Todd, Merriam,
Allen, Balch, Fitts, and Rev. Anson McLoud, a long time
distinguished minister of the Congregational Church. The several
groups contributed their books to the new organization and
monetary gifts were received as well. 7700 books circulated among
243 borrowers in the first year of operations. Mr. Sidney A.
Merriam deserves much credit for this success, and his death the
next year, in 1876, was a severe blow. He endowed the library

with $1000. Rev. McLoud's personal library was given to the
Town Library in 1885 to become the McLoud Department. By
1906, however, the McLoud books constituted only 1/2 percent of
the library's circulation of about 5,200 books.

The new Library was housed in the newly completed Town Hall in
the room that now serves as the Clerk's Office. The first paid
librarian was Miss Victoria Reed and she earned $50 a year. After
a while this room was required by the Selectmen and the Library
was moved to the southwest comer of the building where the
Selectmen now meet. The Library remained here until 1935.

Some of the Library problems during the Town Hall years had a
familiar ring. For example, the 1906 report of the Tmstees
included the following: "The last two years the Town has not seen
fit, without a special appropriation, to pay for the services of the
janitor who has the care of the library room. It seems reasonable
and right that the Town be responsible for that item, rather than to
have it paid from the funds of the library. It may be said further
that it is doubtful whether the income of the funds can be legally
used for any other purpose than the purchase of books."

Land for a new building was bought by the
Town in 1912 from George Francis Dow, but
funding problems delayed the project for some
20 years. A bequest of $15,000 was received
from David Pingree, along with smaller sums
from other donors. Then a grant of about
$10,500 under the National Recovery Act
sponsored by the Roosevelt Administration
finally made it possible to proceed with
construction. The building was designed by
Harold Field Kellogg, a young Boston architect,
with Mr. Balch and George Francis Dow
consultants.

Mr. Dow

serving as his

When the project was completed the Town owned a handsome
library building located in the very heart of the community. These
photographs were taken at Mr. Dow's request on August 28, 1935.
The front door opened to an attractive entrance hall containing the
librarian's desk, files, and bookcases. A series of murals portraying
life in colonial Topsfield, painted by Mr. Kellogg, graced the walls
on three sides. To the right of the entrance door was a well
appointed reading room. Crossing over to the other side of the
building we find ourselves in a room lined with bookcases.

The Topsfield Room
was upstairs over the
reading room. Here
were housed the
1794 bookcase, a
model of the 1759
Meeting House, a
model of the Capen
House, and other
items of historical
interest. The other up-
stairs

The Library in 1935

The Topsfield Room

In the late 1940’s and in the 50's, after WWII, like so many other
towns, Topsfield began to grow. This affected the Library, and in
1 964 an architect was retained to redesign the basement for use as
a Children's Room. Since that time a Children's Librarian has
conducted regular programs for children.

In 1964 the reading rooms were air-conditioned and the Friends of
the Library Group was formally organized. This Group has been of
great value to the Library by providing passes to Boston museums,
organizing all sorts of programs, and providing financial assistance
to accomplish many worthwhile purposes.

1972 and 1973 were critical years. An expansion of the Library
was needed and at the same time use of the upstairs rooms had to
be curtailed to comply with new safety regulations. A fire escape
was required and the load-bearing capability of the second floor
was deemed to be inadequate. $27,000 was voted for a study at a
special Town Meeting. The construction bid to accomplish the
resulting plan came to $350.000, however, and was rejected as

Exterior appearance of the Library following 1973 change
as being too expensive. A less ambitious program to renovate the
Library for $155,000 was voted by the Town. That decision placed

growth limitations on the Library, however, and resulted in further
expansion needs almost before the 1973 renovations were
completed.

The work was done in 1973 while the Library again operated out
of the Town Hall for several months. The second floor was
reinforced and handicapped entrance facilities were provided. The
two upstairs rooms were converted to stacks and a storage area was
made into a gallery. Most of the items of historical interest,
including the 1794 bookcase and its contents, were moved to the
Capen House. 600 people came to the open house held on January
21, 1974 when the Library was reopened.

The upstairs stacks, along with the stacks found downstairs behind
the Circulation Desk provided space for thousands of books stored
in a well-ordered fashion. But in 1981 the Building Inspector
found that more repairs were essential. So, among other things, the
front steps were rebuilt. Along with this work, some very attractive
plantings were introduced at the front of the building.

Painting of old Topsfield by Richard Wyman

From the very beginning the new building was more than a place
devoted only to books. The murals in the Entrance Hall and the
paintings upstairs testify to that. The completion of the Gallery
made possible an ever expanding series of many different cultural

programs. Each year sees several exhibitions of paintings, many
by loeal artists. There have been exhibits by potters, by wood
earvers, and seulptures. There have been lectures on music, on
literature, and poetry readings. There have been slide presentations
on nature and loeal history. Paintings are on display in many parts
of the building, sueh as the painting of old Topsfield by Riehard
Wyman, that hung for many years in the Family Bank.

The referenee room housed most of the modem equipment used
by the Library and its patrons. Two CD-ROM equipped computers
were available where one eould aeeess all kinds of information,
sueh as eomplete texts of many magazines not found in the reading
room. There was also a fax-maehine.

Current magazines and new books were on display in the Reading
Room. Patrons eould browse new volumes before deeiding what
books to read. A very popular area was the eollection of videos
that eould be borrowed. A mierofilm reader was available in the
upstairs staeks where over 20 years of the Tri-Town Transcript
could be read.

The Library is a busy place, witness all the ears usually parked on
South Common Street. Between 1970 and 1994 eireulation of
books, magazines, and reeords was at a high level, increasing to
about 80,000 pieees in 1994. By 1999 the Library’s collection of
books exceeded 47,000 volumes and the total eireulation was about
147.000 items. But patrons have aeeess to a greater range of
choiees. An on-line eatalogue is available to tap the resourees of
the Merrimaek Valley Library Consortium.

The Library is administered by the Library Director and a Board of
Tmstees who are elected by the eitizens of the Town and serve for
three years. They meet with the Direetor on a monthly basis.

Funds to operate the Library are voted at
annual town meetings and most of the
money is derived from the tax base.

Ineome from certain trust funds is also
available, however, and the largest of the
funds is a bequest to the town of
Topsfield from Mr. George L. Gould who
died in 1921. Mr. Gould's will specified
that upon the death of his last child, which
occurred in 1989, a portion of the
remaining estate should go to the Town of
Topsfield to be held as a trust. One half of
the income was to be spent for the purchase of books for the public
library, and the balance for the purchase of works of art if
provisions shall have been made for the reception of such articles.
If not, said one half may be used for the repair and upkeep of the

Trustees of the Town Library in 1994

The services and facilities of a modern library have changed
dramatically since Mr. Gould's days, and therefore the Probate
Court ruled on the interpretation of his will. At the time of the
200^^ anniversary of the Library in 1994 the Trustees began a

Mr. Gould

study of how the Library might utilize these funds to best serve the
Town in the years ahead. The members of that Board were: Rear
row: Karen Dow, Martha Morrison, and Joe Collins. Front row:
Harry Grobelewski, Director Shiela Glowacki, and Elinore
Ansteensen. Catherine Marra was not present for the photo.

The shortcomings of the 1994 library building were documented,
and the Trustees engaged consultants to determine how the
problems might best be solved. The basic limitations that had to be
overcome were the following:

(1) The building was too small to allow for expected
growth. Many of the stacks were difficult to use because of
narrow aisles, and a low ceiling.

(2) The building no longer met the standards for
handicapped access.

(3) The Gallery was too small to accommodate reasonable
sized groups for cultural programs.

(4) The Children’s Library was far too small.

(5) Insufficient seating was available for students to study
in quiet.

(6) And finally, we are entering an age of information
explosion. A modem library requires an adequate number
of computer terminals that connect to the Internet and
access information from CD-ROMS.

While the handsome library building constmcted in 1935 had
served the Town well for over half a century, the time came for
making changes to adapt it for the new age. The sequence of
events was as follows:

February 27, 1996 Town voted to buy 1 1 High Street home
April 10, 1996 Application filed with the State for a grant

May 7, 1996 Schematic design plans approved by the

Town

State approved a $1,331,247 grant

September 19, 1996

October 19/20, 1996 Town voted to accept the State grant and to

Exclude Library debt from
Proposition 2 V2 limitation

The 1 1 High Street house was bought by the Town using Gould
funds. Originally it was planned to use the building as a temporary
library but that turned out to be impraetical. Instead the building
was used later by the contraetor for administrative purposes. The
house was moved off the site in the spring of 1999.

The cost of the undertaking was
fmaneed as follows:

from Gould Funds
from State Grant
by The Town

about $3,400,000 and was

$1,300,000

$1,331,000

$769,000

In January, 1997, the architectural firm of A. Anthony Tappe
Associates Inc. was selected. As building plans developed, there
were the usual requests for building permits, and design and cost
reviews leading eventually to the requesting of bids and the
selection of a contractor, G and R Construction, of Malden.

On August 23, 1997 day-to-day library operation were transferred
to temporary quarters in the Shopping Center. Library services
were conducted from this location until December 23, 1998.

On November 7, 1997 a ground breaking ceremony was held.
After hearing from Elia Mamick, Vice-chair of the Massachusetts
Board of Library Commissioners, State Senator Bruce Tarr, State
Representative Ted Speliotis, and Director Sheila Glowacki, the
group went out for a symbolic ground breaking. This group
included the State officials, the Library Trustees, Friends of the
Library, and a member of the Board of Selectmen. Then came the
real work. Asbestos had to be removed in the old building and the
Library addition of 1973 had to come down to make way for the
new design.

Finally, after many months, the day came when the temporary
library was closed and the books were returned. This was a
volunteer effort involving several hundred townspeople of all ages.
Some 45,000 books packed in some 7,000 bags were transferred
from the Shopping Center to Library on rainy days by truck and
then carried into the stack areas of the new building by a long book
brigade line. Then the bagged books were placed in the stacks
where they were to be kept.

During the whole construction period the Building Committee with
Martha Morrison as the Chairperson met regularly with the
architect, the general contractor, and many sub- contractors. The
Library Board of Trustees that saw the work through to completion
is shown in the following photo with the Library Director. Front
row from left to right we have Catherine Marra, Martha Morrison,
and Joan Panella. Rear row from left to right are Shiela Glowacki,
Walter Rehak, and Karen Dow, Chair. Audrey larocci was not

Library Board of Trustees in 1999

The murals depicting Topsfield’s early history in the entrance hall
of the original building remain and a large new mural now graces a
wall in the new Children's Library. It was created by artist David
Fichter of Cambridge. He selected Topsfield scenes to blend with

themes appreeiated by children to stimulate curiosity about our
world.

David Fichter working on the mural in the Children’s Room

All of the shortcomings of the original building have been
addressed, and the Library is able now to accommodate the
functions of a modern library in addition to many diverse cultural
activities.

There are numerous computer terminals for patrons to use or they
can bring their own laptop machines. There are two closed rooms
for quiet study and one large meeting room, that may be divided
into two separate rooms, with a pull-down screen and a digital
projector. One of the two downstairs rooms in the old building will
house books of current interest, while the other room is arranged
for the reading of periodicals.

The main desk

The new Library

The new library has been made possible by Mr. Gould's
generosity, by help from the State, by the support of the citizens of
Topsfield, and particularly by the dedication of the Library Board
of Trustees and the Building Committee.

THE CHURCHES OF TOPSFIELD

By Jan Jansen

Gathered in 1663, the Congregational Church is by far the oldest
organized church in town. It has had a presence on the Common
since 1703 but that building has been replaced twice, in 1759 and
1842. Thus the present meeting house dates from 1842. While
major changes were made in 1853, 1891, 1968, and 1997, the
exterior appearance is essentially the same as it was after the 1 842
construction. The modifications made in recent years have dealt
mostly with interior changes, principally the chancel area.

Interior of Congregational Church prior to 1967

In the 1990s a handicapped entrance was added on the north side
of the meeting house as well as a lavatory in the narthex.
Ultimately old buildings are in need of major repairs. In this case,
that involved the restoration of the steeple, described elsewhere in
this issue.

A Methodist Church was built on the Common in 1854. The
second floor served as the church sanctuary while the ground floor
was used for many church and town functions. Originally it had a
tall steeple which was cut down in 1889 and finally eliminated in
1938 when the building became the Parish House of the
Congregational Church.

Methodist Church

Prior to 1889 After 1889

Parish House of the Congregational Church

A wedding in the Congregational Church in 1968 after extensive interior

changes had been made

From the very beginning, the Congregational Church lacked an
adequate social hall and classrooms for religious education. This
lack was alleviated somewhat in 1924 with the federation of the
Congregational and Methodist Churches and particularly after
1938 when the Methodist Church was dissolved and that building
became the Parish House of the Congregational Church. The
church acquired Emerson Center in 1959 and made extensive
modifications to the Parish House in 1963. All this provided
office and classroom space but in a campus type setting. All this
changed once again when the Fellowship Hall addition to Emerson
Center was completed and the Church sold the Parish House to a
private party who converted it into a function hall named Topsfield
Commons.

Upstairs in former Parish House after its conversion to Topsfield Commons

Several Catholic families settled in Topsfield in 1855 and were
obliged to travel first to Salem, and then to Danvers to attend
Mass. The first Catholic services in Topsfield were held in the
Grange Hall beginning in 1914 which formerly stood on the site of
27 Main Street and was gutted by fire in 1941. The St. Rose

Chapel was built in 1922 on Park Street, served by priests from
Danvers. It became The St. Rose of Lima Church in 1949 when a
resident priest was assigned. The present handsome church was
built in 1987. The old building was taken down in 1992 to make
room for a parking lot.

St. Rose of Lima Church built in 1987

There is a large parish hall, including a kitchen, on the eastern side
of the sanctuary which is used for religious education, meetings,
and social affairs. It is also where Topsfield citizens go to cast
their ballots in elections. This was done in the Parish House of the
Congregational Church before that building became Topsfield
Commons.

St. Rose Sanctuary

The St. Rose sanctuary is well lighted, with comfortable seating,
and good acoustics

The Trinity Episcopal Church of Topsfield and Boxford grew out
of a survey made by the Massachusetts Council of Churches in
1957 on the religious needs in the Topsfield-Boxford area. It
started as an Episcopal mission in 1957 and services were first held
in the Linebrook Congregational building in Ipswich. That
building was in very poor shape, not having been used for nearly
100 years, and considerable effort and expense was required to

make the church useful. In 1958 the Executive Committee of the
mission set out to raise funds for a new permanent home. Mr.
William A. Coolidge gave nine acres of land at the far corner of his
large estate on River Road as the site and he also pledged to match
all paid-up pledges, dollar for dollar, for the duration of the
building project. The architect was John W. Peirce of the firm
Peirce and Pierce of Cambridge, and a life-long resident of
Topsfield. He designed a tri-partite building complex featuring a

The completed church complex

The ground breaking ceremony was held on Sunday, October 26,
1959 and in March 1960 Trinity Episcopal Church of Topsfield
and Boxford was officially incorporated as a self-sustaining parish.
The first service was held in the yet unfinished sanctuary on
October 23, 1960 and the official dedication came on January 22,
1961. The latest and largest addition to the original complex was
completed in

Courtyard statuary

The courtyard statuary of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane was
a gift by Mr. Coolidge to the glory of God and in honor of Cardinal
Cushing. It was dedicated in March 1966 at an ecumenical service
with Richard Cardinal Cushing as one of the participating clergy-
men.

Belltower

The belltower was erected in 1967. An early 19^^ century bell from
St. Paul’s parish in Newburyport can be rung on Sundays
preceding services.

Our Savior Lutheran Church on Boston Street, had its beginning in
a house-to-house survey made between August and October in
1 962 to investigate the feasibility of establishing a Lutheran church
here, to serve the needs of the North Shore from Rowley to
Danvers. This led to the founding of Our Savior Lutheran Church
with an initial service in Woodbury Auditorium of the Proctor
School on November 18, 1962. In 1963 the congregation took an
option on property at 478 Boston Street, just south of the Ipswich

Our Savior Lutheran Church

line for a permanent church location. Serious inquiry into building
on this site began in January 1965. In June 1965 church services
were transferred from the Proctor School to the Linebrook Church
previously used by the Episcopalians. Ground breaking for the
new church on Boston Street occurred on November 20, 1966, and
in October 1 967 the new church was dedicated.

Originally the church building was sheathed with cedar shakes as
shown in the photograph taken in 1989. In 2001 the church was
extensively modified, inside and outside, to serve a growing and
changing congregation. The exterior appearance after the
modifications, as photographed in the winter of 2004, was very
different.

After 2001 modifications

Concerning the interior, Our Savior Lutheran Church is now
Topsfleld’s most modern design as shown in the following photos.
We include a view of the chancel from the entrance doors. The
pews were replaced by comfortable chairs that can be rearranged
easily. The chancel is designed to easily accommodate
contemporary worship styles. An area at the rear of the sanctuary
contains banks of controls and switches to adjust the lighting and
acoustics for

Control panel enclosure

Organ

The original pipe organ, dating from 1875-1880 and bought from
the Second Congregational Church in Peabody, was replaced by a
four-manual plus pedal electronic organ able to simulate a wide
range of organ sounds including that of a classical pipe organ.

Chancel of Our Savior Lutheran Church

At the entrance to
the sanctuary

there is a glass
wall and two glass
doors on a track.
This whole

assembly can be
moved out of the
way thus adding
the large entrance
area for additional
seating.

Entrance to the sanctuary

TOPSFIELD’S LAST REMAINING ONE ROOM
SCHOOLHOUSE

By Nonnan Isler

Education was important to the people of the Massaehusetts Bay
Colony from the very beginning. In 1642 the Massaehusetts Bay
Colony passed legislation requiring families to teaeh their ehildren
“to read and understand the prineiples of religion.” During this
time children were schooled mainly at home where learning to read
and write was eonsidered important to understand the Bible and
scripture, and these documents were used as the primary learning
material.

In 1647 the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislators passed a law
direeting towns of fifty households to appoint teachers of reading
and writing and towns of one hundred households to establish
grammar sehools. Eventually every New England eolony exeept
Rhode Island had such a law.

George Francis Dow in his History of Topsfield, Mass devoted
Chapter 17 to the subject. He recorded that the very first school in
Topsfield began at least in 1694 per town reeords whieh show that
Goodman Lovewell was allowed to live in the parsonage house
whieh was left un-oeeupied because Parson Joseph Capen lived in
his own house. He was “...to keepe schole and swepe ye meeting
house”. He served as schoolmaster at least until 1696.

There was much discussion and many votes in the early town
meetings where sehools should be located. On several oecasions
projeets were rejected because eost estimates were too high.
Finally, by 1794 there were three one room sehoolhouses in three
sections of the town to serve the children in those districts The
South School was located on the hill south of the river elose to
what is now the Newburyport Turnpike. The Middle School (or

East School ) was located on Perkins Row. It is believed that the
flag displayed in the Gould Bam once waved over the East School.
The North School was located in the area that is now Ipswich Road
and East Street. At a town meeting on September 10, 1794 the
town voted to build a fourth school, the Centre School,
approximately where the town hall now stands.

By 1 845 the schools were performing well but after many years of
negleet the town voted to replaee all four school buildings. The
original East School was sold in 1847 to Douglas Willey for
$22.75 who moved it to High Street. He used it as a earpenter’s
shop until 1860 when the building was moved again to Boston
Street where it was converted into part of a stable. The last East
School was built in 1 847 on Perkins Row near the home of Dr.
Henry F. Sears, later the Thomas Proctor residence.

The East Schoolhouse in about 1890

By 1890 only four students attended the East School and the
sehool eommittee decided to close the school and transport the
students to the Centre School, then housed in the enlarged

Topsfield Academy building on School Street. Perhaps the
picture of the old school shows it in its final days with the teacher,
Miss Ruth E. Bradstreet, and those four pupils. Six years later the
North and South Schools were also discontinued and all Topsfield
students were transferred to the Centre School.

The East School closed in the year ending March 1891 due, as
noted, to low enrollment. The house was moved in 1 902 to Dudley
Quinn Perkins’s property at 121 Perkins Row, supposedly for use
as a poultry house; however it had a brick chimney and field stone
foundation at this location which raises a question about its actual
use. Finally it was basically abandoned and its condition gradually
deteriorated until, in 2006, efforts were made by Alexandra de Buy
Wenniger and Norman J. Isler to obtain the house for the purpose
of restoring it. They envisioned it being brought back to or near its
original condition and relocated to a more central area where it
would be used as an example of school facilities of that period for
future generations. It could also be used for local community
activities much like the Danvers Putnamville school house. The
East School house’s then current owners, Robin Long and Paul
Ackerman, graciously donated the building to the Topsfield
Historical Society on November 28, 2006. .

Isler asked Aaron Sturgis of Preservation Timber Framing Inc. to
inspect the building to verify whether it was capable of being
restored and what the cost might be. Sturgis’s verdict, rendered in
May, 2007 was that it was indeed restorable but first it should be
stabilized; two holes in the roof and some rotted structural
members needed urgent attention. A concerned anonymous
society member made a generous donation to cover the cost of
stabilization. The area immediately surrounding the building was
cleared of saplings and other brush by volunteers in the fall of
2006 to allow room for scaffolding. The overgrown unpaved
roadway leading to the building from Candlewood Drive was also
cleared to allow vehicle access. The stabilization project was
approved by the society directors at a November 9, 2006 board

meeting and was completed in April 2007 accompanied by the
Sturgis May report of existing conditions and an estimate of
$149,000 to restore it on a site provided by the society. This
estimated cost would be affected by the functions the building
would serve and other factors such as site preparation.

Interior

Rear view, June 2007

For an example of adaptive use of a historic building the Danvers’s
Putnamville School House can be used. That structure, built in
1852, was restored by the town and is used as a community
meeting house. The building is registered with the Massachusetts
Historical Commission. It is currently on lease to the Art

Association for their activities. In addition to serving as a example
of an early American educational facility, the East Schoolhouse’s
possible adaptive uses could include a meeting place for
community gatherings, an information center or as a museum. As
is the case with many historic buildings, some modifications would
be anticipated to allow its adaptive use. For example, even though
the school house had no plumbing, its planned restoration might
include a kitchen sink and indoor restroom as well as some storage
space.

While the building’s deterioration was halted, a search was
undertaken to find a suitable location for its eventual restoration as

it once was, ie, a one room schoolhouse of the mid 1800’s
complete with furnishings of that period. This seems to be the
most appropriate use of the old building. The society’s only
property at #1 Hewlett Street was deemed unacceptable as the
house was not historically appropriate on the grounds of the much
earlier 1683 Capen House. The Topsfield Fairgrounds expressed
interest in the building being erected on their property as part of a
early American village display which already has a blacksmith
shop; however it was felt that the building’s use as an example of a
schoolhouse could not be guaranteed and their request to have the
building donated to them was not felt to be in the building’s best
interest. A potential site suggested by several individuals was
midway between town hall and Proctor Elementary School. This
location would be on town and/or school owned property and
offers several advantages over any other site identified at that time,
such as visibility, accessibility, some parking capability and some
level of security. Subsequently in the Spring of 2008, Isler held a
series of exploratory meetings with the town manager and
selectmen, the Park and Cemetery Department, the Historical
Commission, and the Elementary School Committee, to both
acquaint them with the concept and to obtain a sense of their
feelings regarding the schoolhouse’ s renovation, relocation and
use. No objections were raised, and in fact, a sense of support was
evident throughout the series of meetings. The plan at this time-
August 2008- is to apply for permission from the Massachusetts
Historical Commission to erect the house on the site described
above since that area is on the National Register which is
administered by the commission. Once that and other permits or
approvals are obtained a community wide fund raising campaign
will be undertaken in parallel with applications being submitted to
a number of foundations interested in historic preservation. By this
approach it is hoped that this piece of Topsfield ’s history will be
preserved for future generations.

Since 1974 ^vfien a sfiecC 6efiincC tfie Capen 3-Couse was
converted into tfie Capen 3-Couse CiCrary ancC connected to
tCie Capen 3{ouse, the Society Cached a faciCity to store
equipment and suppCies needed to maintain the property.
M^hen IN'orman IsCer Became president he acted to correct
this deficiency and in January, 1991 he wrote a Cetter to the
rnemhership advising them of the progress Being made. The
foCCowing is an excerpt from that Cetter.

PARSON CAPEN HOUSE MAINTENANCE BUILDING

By Norman Isler

Construction of the maintenance building was begun last fall
following approval of the project by the Executive Board in April,
1990. Plans were drawn up by architect and member Ben Nutter
for a 12’ by 16’ building of the early 1800s, like a shoemaker’s
shop and the work proceeded quite well using volunteer help.
Contractors were used to pour the footings and lay the sill. Cedar
shakes will be used for the roof and cedar shingles will complete
the outside walls. Ken Crocker, Don King, Ken Turner and Bob
Dow constructed and raised the frame and did the sheeting. The
window frames and door were prefabricated in Ken Crocker’s
wood working shop with John Nutter creating some missing
antique hinge pintels. Mareen and Joe Geller very graciously
donated a quantity of pine boards cut from trees on their property
to the Society, enough now on hand (courtesy of Steve Nutter’s
truck) to finish the floor and attic plus a potting bench for the
Priscilla Capen Herb Society.

It is interesting to note that on one of the earliest photos of the
Capen property a maintenance building like this one can be seen in
nearly the same location. Incidently, the site was chosen upon the
advice of Ben Nutter who thoughtfully pointed out that care should
be taken to not locate the structure so as to detract from the classic
view of the Capen House as seen from the parking lot.

In addition to being a worthwhile and fun task it is gratifying to see
that the volunteer spirit is still alive in our town. Our goal is to
have the building eompleted by Strawberry Festival time, June
15*

The maintenance building

A report entitled “ Specifications for conservation and repairs”
dated June 1975, included a drawing of the Capen lot which
portrayed the history of what was located on the lot over the years.
The map is reproduced on the following page.

KNO^’ TO HAVE
hXIS*IKb«

SPNEA/DMH/ 6/2/75

RKFs PHOTOS & HORTON
BRADSTREET

J'fie reconstruction of the Josej)h QouCcC 'Barn on the Capen
3-Couse property was the most ambitious program of the
TopsfieCcC 3-CistoricaC Society since the acquisition and
restoration of the Capen 3-Couse Use f in 1913. The project was
accompCished under the Ceadership of JTorman Is Cer, president
of the Society, 3-fe gave unstintingCy of his time, energy and
knowledge to head a reCativeCy small group of volunteers, 3Ce
dealt with professional contractors who supplied services
beyond what the volunteers were able to do, 3Ce bed the
pubCicity and fund raising activities, 'Reconstruction of the
barn accompCished several purposes. It preserved and re-

used the framework of one of TbpsfieCds oldest landmarks. It
provided the 3Cist or icaC Society with a centraCCy located place
for meetings and for the storage of historical records, yVaCC-
mounted displays serve to exhibit artifacts, finaCCy the barn
is a facility for private and community events thereby
providing the society with another source of income,

THE CAPTAIN JOSEPH GOULD BARN

By Norman Isler

To learn about the barn is to step back into Colonial American
history. It was built by the Goulds , one of the founding families of
Topsfield. Zaccheus Gould (1589-1668) was the first Gould in the
new world, having arrived from Hemel Hemstead, England in 1638
with his family. He took an active part in creating the town, then
known as New Meadows, and was one of its leading citizens. His
only son, John Gould (1635-1709), later had five sons, each of
whom had a large family. The oldest son, also John Gould (1662-
1724), was a weaver and was a man of note in the town. It was he
who built the bam in 1710 after buying the second meeting house
that stood in what is now Pine Grove Cemetery for five pounds for
use as a bam. Several of the posts in the barn show mortise holes
not needed for the bam, and so it is possible that some of these posts
may have come from the old meeting house. If so, this would place
their age sometime before 1663 when the meeting house was moved

100

from its original location on Meeting House Lane.

John Gould’s fifth son, Joseph Gould (1677-1753), held the
commission of Captain, was a selectman, and represented the town
in the General Court for many years. He had ten children, several
of whom died young. One was also called Joseph (1726-1803) and
it was he for whom our bam is named. Joseph Gould was a
fanner who was elected by the citizens of the town eligible for
military service as Captain of a military company on December 5,
1774. On April 19, 1775, when the alarm came that the British
were marching on Lexington and Concord, tradition holds that he
left his plow in mid-furrow and galloped off to help drive the Red
Coats back to Boston. In addition to his military service he held
leadership roles in the community and served as a church deacon.

Captain Joseph Gould was married to Elizabeth Emerson, the oldest
daughter of Rev. John Emerson, pastor of the Congregational
Chureh. It is interesting to note that the bam named for Captain
Gould is now located next to the Emerson Center named for his
father-in-law. We note also that Mrs. Curtis Campbell, wife of a
former president of the Topsfield Historieal Society was a direct
Gould descendant.

The barn in 1900

101

The Gould home and bam stood on what is now 129 Washington
Street and it remained in the Gould family until 1872 when it was
conveyed to Timothy Fuller. William Abbott acquired title in 1941
and the property was bought by Dr. Michael Shiff in 1968.

In the spring of 1983, Dr. and Mrs.Schiff made an offer of an
unrestricted gift of this bam to the Society including the cost of
careful disassembly. They did express the hope that the barn would
be restored in a manner approximating its early and original state
and offered the services of Richard Nickerson, an experienced
carpenter, to help in its disassembly. A bam committee was formed
of Bob Dow, Jack Peirce and Lenn Bergsten, with Lenn acting as
chairman, to examine the feasibility of the Society accepting the
Schiff s offer. The bam was in seriously deteriorated condition with
its roof caved in and virtually all of its white oak posts rotted at their
bases.

The barn in 1983

Research by Bob Dow disclosed that the bam was one of the oldest
in New England, if not the country, having been built around 1710.
Against this rich history, it was recommended by the committee that
the Society accept the Schiff s generous offer, and on June 2, 1983
President Curtis Campbell made the acceptance. The bam

102

committee then began working closely with Mr. Nickerson,
photographing, measuring and identifying the major framing
timbers.

Arrangements were made to ultilize the Maryknoll gymnasium
building on Route 1 to store the timbers and, in July, volunteers
swept the floor and laid down plastic sheeting in advanee of the
move. From June 21st through August 8th, 1983 Nickerson and two
helpers disassembled the structure piece by pieee with Lenn
Bergsten identifying each timber piece by metal tags and eolored
yarn. He also measured post lengths as they had been initially, that
is before becoming rotted.

During July and August, truckloads of bam timbers were moved
from Washington Street to the Maryknoll site, some by way of Lenn
Bergsten’ s garage where he examined them further. Timber
transportation was provided by John Nutter, Ed and Glenn
Harrington, Lou Olmstead, and Frank and Jean Demers. Bergsten
also laid out the timbers by bents and purlins across the gymnasium
floor. Also in August Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Peabody offered select
Hewlett- Hobbs mill and dwelling timbers as an unrestricted gift to
the Soeiety. The offer was aecepted and Lenn Bergsten moved
those timbers to the Maryknoll site.

During late August examination by a most noted authority on bams,
Robert Blair St. George confirmed the bam was one of the three
oldest in this part of the country, placing it squarely in Parson
Capen’s period in Topsfield. The bam located at 95 River Road
was also one of the three. A later examination of the River Road
barn by Jan Lewandoski of East Greensboro, Vermont led to his
conclusion that both bams, in addition to being about the same age,
were likely designed by the same builder. Further research by the
committee showed the US direct tax records of 1798 described the
bam as being 28 X 90 feet where as the existing size was 28 X 41
feet. Later examination of the framing by Lewandoski, showed that
the right end bent to be an intermediate bent, as evideneed by the

103

comer bracing being located in the center of the post and beam
instead of along their sides. The missing bam bays therefore
evidently extended from the right side of the four remaining bays.
Examination also showed that the rear and right side extensions of
the bam had been built at a later time period as evidenced by their
constmction style, mainly stud and rafter, instead of post and beam.

In September the deteriorated timber areas were treated with
insecticide and fungicide by Bergsten. He also removed loose
material from the timbers, staked out an area on the Capen property
where the bam might be re erected and performed some preliminary
load calculations. From the probate lists of both Priscilla and
Joseph Capen it was known that they had a horse and a cow, so
presumably they must have had a barn in which to keep them.
Early photographs of the Capen property do show a bam-like
structure in the low land next to the Emerson Center parking lot.
Several large flat stones were also present in this location which
may have been part of a bam floor or foundation, thus lending
credence to the premise that a bam once stood on the property. As
Jack Peirce observed in a November 22, 1983 feasibility report, to
re-erect the barn at this location would compromise the fine
traditional view of the Capen House as one enters from the town
Common.

Late 19*^' century picture showing a barn near the Capen House

104

During October, timber measurements were taken by Bergsten and
Jack Peirce for use in a database prepared by Jack for use in
reconstruction. Preliminary load calculations were made by both
Bergsten and Peirce with Peirce also creating the first re-erection
cost estimate in his November 2nd report. He found that
reconstruction was entirely practical but only at substantial cost. He
also wondered about the possible detraction from historic
authenticity in making the bam functional and useful.

In November, 1983 the Barn Committee was expanded to include
the following members: Gordon Brandes, Society President, Curtis
Campbell, George Clark, Mrs. William Crawford, Robert Dow, Jack
Peirce, Architect, and Lenn Bergsten, Chairman. It was
recommended by this committee that the timbers be put into storage
until such time as the Society felt it had the where- with- all to
reconstmct the bam.

In the early 1 990’s the Commonwealth of Massachusetts decided to
raze the Maryknoll building, thus eliminating the gymnasium as a
timber storage site. With the aid of volunteers, the timbers were
moved to a barn on the Meredith Farms property owned by Mr.
William Coolidge, a former director of the Historical Society.
About a year later Mr. Coolidge died, leaving Meredith Farms to
MIT. Shortly afterwards MIT notified the Society of their plans to
raze the storage bam, requesting removal of the timbers from the
property. With the aid of the local boy scout troop and the
forbearance of MIT, the timbers were again moved, this time to
another bam still on the Meredith Farm property In the process of
this latest move Society President Norm Isler noted that some of the
timbers showed signs of powder post beetle attack. Believing that
the time had come after more than 10 years in storage for the
Society to either resurrect the barn or give the historic timbers to an
organization that would utilize them in an appropriate manner, Isler
recommended the membership be polled. In June 1993, a
membership survey was made to determine the extent of interest in
reconstmcting the bam and the level of commitment to support the

105

project financially.

Four objectives were defined for the project as listed in the survey,
first and foremost being preservation of the timber framing. Next
was to provide a display area for artifacts of the period, particularly
those related to agriculture. Following this was a need to provide a
meeting place for Society events as well as place where records
could be stored and easily accessed. Up to this point the records
were stored in the unheated and somewhat inaccessible Capen attic.
Finally, the facility could be use for private and organizational
events. Over 95% of those responding to the survey said they felt
the Society should proceed on its own, and about 82% of those so
inclined indicated they would support it financially. 43% of the
returns indicated they would provide materials, professional advice
or service in some capacity. Encouraged by these results as well as
by the level of support demonstrated building a shed for use in
Capen house and grounds maintenance in 1991, a new committee
was organized in June, 1993 composed initially of the following
individuals:

Elizabeth Brown Mulholland Jan Jansen

Barbara Carpenter Dorothy Leach

Ken Crocker Ben Nutter

Norm Isler, Chairman Tim Perkins

Peter Jaquith Bill Whiting

The purpose of the committee was to pursue the project to its
completion. A series of meetings were then held at the Capen library
for about the next several years to organize and maintain the project.
During this time the committee membership changed due to reasons
such as marriage, death and transfers until at the project's
completion. Five of the original 10 remained: Carpenter, Isler,
Jansen, Whiting, and Nutter.

Architect Ben Nutter brought his skills to bear by preparing concept-
tual drawings and some detailed sketches so that cost estimates

106

could be created and permits obtained. A set of specifications was
developed defining details to be included.

The project was organized into stages as follows:

1 . Research and design

2. Inventory and condition assessment

3. Fundraising

4. Frame restoration

5. Site preparation-clearing, excavation, foundation, grading

6 Floor joists and deck construction

7. Assembly of bents on the deck

8. Frame erection

9. Roofing, sheathing, siding, doors, windows, finish
flooring, cabinets, utilities, et. al.

It was believed by the committee that refurbishing of the timbers
and their re-erection would best be left to professionals. About 80%
of the four bay structure was considered reusable; even the original
builder’s marks were still clearly visible. After consulting with the
Boston Society of Architects, they recommended Jan Lewandoski,
preservation carpenter from East Greensboro, Vermont as being well
qualified in this field. He was contacted, visited the Meredith Farm
site on October 19 and again on December 28, 1993 to view the
timbers, and voiced the opinion that it was entirely feasible to
rebuild the barn on a foundation to be provided by the Society. On
February 13, 1994 his proposal was accepted. His tasks were to get
the timbers in condition, provide replacements for any missing or
unusable pieces and raise the re-assembled frame. On April 30, 1994
Lewandoski moved the timbers requiring preparation to his Vermont
shop where they were worked on by his crew in parallel with site
preparation work by volunteers in Topsfield. Lenn Bergsten’s
meticulous identification and documentation proved invaluable
during reconstruction. Jan Lewandoski said that this was the best
documented set of bam timbers he had been in contact with in his

career.

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It was evident that the barn had two later period shed-like additions;
one on the left side measuring 12 X 28 feet and the second on the
rear measuring 14 X 41 feet. It was decided to utilize the left shed
extension to house 2 wheelchair accessible restrooms, an exit, and a
small kitchen, while the rear extension would be used for both
record retention and access as well as providing a storage space.
While neither shed extensions’ intended uses were historically
appropriate, they were felt to be as justifiable as heating or lighting
would be of respecting historic considerations while providing a
functional facility. A layout was then prepared showing the
intended uses of the facility.

The kitchen layout was defined by Society member Ardie Clark who
had considerable experience in preparing meals for large groups of
people. Her counsel proved invaluable. Compliments on the
arrangement came in from caterers and others who subsequently
used the facility.

Inclusion of a kitchen and restrooms in the plan meant consideration
of a septic system. Peter Giabbai, Professional Engineer and
president of Ja-By Engineering of Topsfield took over this task on a
volunteer basis. On April 22, 1994 he supervised the running of
percolation tests which disclosed that the only feasible location for a
septic field was the level area in front of the Capen parking place.
The tests also showed that a pump up system would be required and
that any basement depth should be limited to about 50 inches.
Giabbai designed a system meeting the new Title V requirements,
obtained the necessary permit and supervised its installation by
Thompson.

One consequence of the water table level was that considerable
additional fill would be required over the septic field. Jim Brady, a
local developer working on the Great Hill senior housing project,
was approached by Isler, and he agreed to provide 800 yards of free
fill plus field stones that would be needed to line the bam foundation
and to build a retaining wall. Support such as this from individuals

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like Giabbai and Brady was outstanding and enabled the project to
be accomplished at minimum cost.

Fund raising efforts now began with a committee organized for that
purpose. It was initially made up of Bette Hawkins, Mary Brown,
Allison D’Amario and Norm Isler. An estimated amount of
$170,000 was required. Initial grant applications were created by
Elizabeth Brown, a preservation major who also researched county
records, to help define what type of bam would have existed about
1710. The research indicated that the Capen's bam was most likely a
combination livestock and granary bam which was found to be a
common type of barn at the time. Vertical pine siding appeared to
be typical at that time, with the boards put up while still freshly cut,
the idea being that normal shrinkage would result in gaps that would
provide air circulation as a precaution against spontaneous
combustion. Research also indicated that bams in this period
typically were located at least 100 feet and downhill from the
dwelling house. The barn's specific location on the Capen property

Ben Nutter and Norm Isler at the site selected for the barn

109

was then considered with the final conclusion being that positioning
it as far to the rear of the property as allowed by the town's by laws
(10 feet in the case of an historic structure) and on the level portion
at least 100 feet from the Capen House and downhill would be a
reasonable solution considering the available alternatives. This
location also had the advantage of being located near the duck pond
which most likely was a water source for livestock.

In parallel with research and preliminary planning, the membership
was informed of the survey results and a subsequent Executive
Board decision to move ahead with the project as funds would
permit. In March 1994 the Society made a public announcement of
its intent to restore the bam and began an appeal for financial
support. In addition to the membership solicitation, requests for
funds were made to the community at large, to people named Gould
and Capen in particular, to local businesses, and to private
foundations with an interest in historic preservation. In addition,
special fund raising activities were organized such as a Society
sponsored trip to Ellis Island, a band concert on the town common,
selling of bam models, tee shirts and the proceeds of a British
Broadcasting Company's filming on the Capen House for an edition
of the show “American Visions”. A Pride Stride walk helped as
did a flea market held on the Common . Proceeds from the 1994
Strawberry Festival were applied towards the project.

Over 55 proposals were written by Isler to potential donor
foundations with 7 ultimately responding favorably. By April 29,
1994, $25,084 had been pledged, about half from individual
contributors and the rest from a mix of corporations and other
sources. One unexpected source of funds was from Proctor School.
Fourth grade teacher Mrs. Susan Keliher read of the Society's plan
and took it upon herself to organize a penny fund drive in her class
which soon spread to encompass the entire school. She used the
activity to teach her students not only some local history but also
arithmetic, bookkeeping and even volunteerism. The committee was
impressed with this display of concern, especially coming as it did

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from an unexpected source. The amount it raised ($176.00) was
helpful but the real value was in the morale boost it gave to the
committee, not to mention the learning offered to the students. That
portion of the fund appeal which focused on individuals defined
three levels of potential support: Master Carpenter, Journeyman, and
Apprentice, the level being a function of the amount of the
contribution. Individual contributor donations ranged from $5.00 to
$5000.00. 30 Master Carpenters, 35 Journeymen and 303
Apprentices participated in the drive which significantly helped. By
September 13, 1994, $65,318 had been pledged with $55,903 on
hand towards the estimated $170,000 total project cost. A $10,000
loan from Beverly National Bank was arranged to allow the project
to continue to a weathertight stage.

One foundation which wished to remain anonymous offered a
$10,000 matching grant which was met by the committee's other
sources. Virtually all of the funds were applied directly to the
project since no professional fund raisers or other overhead costs
existed except for insurance to cover the volunteers, mailing
expenses and interest on the short term loan. The local cable
television channel was used to promote the project via a short taped
interview with the committee. The fact that the bam was originally
constmcted about 22 years before George Washington was bom was
included in the information package assembled by Jeff Runnion of
Runnion Associates and helped convey the sense of age represented
by the framing. Local artist Larry Webster made up a bam logo that
was used on stationary, tee shirts and caps to promote the project.
Newspaper coverage was solicited with the result that a growing
number of people were becoming aware of the project. Two scale
models were made by Bunny Nutter for display in the Family and
Beverly National Bank lobbies as an aid to publicity. A donation
was received from as far away as Hawaii with several from the state
of Washington as well as other parts of the country. The Danvers
Home Depot store granted a discount on some building materials.
The Park & Cemetery Superintendent, Steve Shephard, allowed the
Society use of pine logs left from cuttings in the Pine Grove

Ill

Cemetery (where Joseph Gould is buried), even cutting more trees
than were in his way, so that sufficient board feet were available for
siding. Scott Dwinnell offered 3 large old oak trees on his (King's
Grant) property if the Society would help in their felling. Both
timber offers were gratefully accepted and John Nutter, Bill Whiting
and Norm Isler subsequently helped Scott in carrying out these
offers. In March, 1995 Jack Peirce, Mickie Moore, Bill Whiting and
Norm Isler

Pine lumber from the cemetery

cut up pine timber donated by Patricia and Russell Brickett at their
Garden Street site and moved it to the Capen location. A portable
saw mill was then brought in to cut the logs into 1 inch thick boards
which were then stored until air dried- 6 months for pine and 1 V2
years for the oak. The project was now beginning to take on the
feel of something the entire community was supporting.

An application was submitted to the Massachusetts Historical Com-
mission (MHC) requesting permission to allow construction of the
barn on the National landmark Capen property. Other permit
applications such as those required by the Conservation
Commission, Historic Commission, building, plumbing, electrical

112

Portable sawmill in operation

inspectors and Water Department were also submitted. MHC
required that an archaeological survey of the site be conducted by a
recognized archaeologist, and Boston University’s Professor Mary
Beaudry was selected to undertake the survey. She enlisted the aid
of BU's Archaeology club as unpaid assistants, and on November
13, 1993 eighteen test pits 1 1/2 feet deep were dug in the footprint
of the barn and along the proposed utility trenches. While no
Colonial artifacts were uncovered, during the 17th pit dig a sharp-
eyed student discovered what was later identified as a 2000-4000
year old Squibnocket Native American projectile point made of
felsite. As a result of this finding MHC requested additional pits be
dug to ensure no other such prehistoric artifacts might be present;
however with further digging none were found. The Squibnocket
tribe was based in the Martha's Vineyard area where felsite material
is also found. Speculation as to how this projectile point came to
Topsfield was that it might have belonged to a solitary hunter lying
in wait for game at a nearby watering hole, known today as the duck

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Massive floor joists installed by volunteers

Thompson Construction Company was selected to dig the hole for
the basement, and in June 1995 the foundation was poured. In July
the rough floor was installed, supported by a massive Douglas fir
joist. The rear shed wall, about 7X41 feet, was fabricated on top of
the floor, ready for raising by hand in August at a special symbolic
ceremony by the volunteers. Raising of the ham’s main frame took
place in September 1995 under Lewandoski’s direction with the aid

pond, about 60 feet away from the discovery site. Finally, in
September 1994 following submittal of a completion memo on
November 23, 1993, project approval was obtained from MHC.

As time went on, sufficient funds were pledged or realized to give
confidence that the goal would indeed be reached, and accordingly a
date in late May 1995 was chosen for the ground breaking
ceremony. Students from the Pingree School in Hamilton helped
clear the site along with Bill Whiting, Peter Jacquith, John Nutter
and Norm Isler. Joyce Bergsten, widow of Lenn Bergsten, wielded
the shovel following a brief ceremony at which refreshments were
se

114

Raising of the rear shed wall by volunteers

Crowd at the symbolic barn raising

115

After the framework of the barn was raised

About this time, retired general contractor and Topsfield resident
Lee Marchand joined the small cadre of volunteers and brought his
impressive carpentry skills to bear. With his support, plus that of
Dick Carlson, Bill Whiting, Carl Porter, Ed DesChene, Russ
Blauser, Dick Frederickson, Jan Jansen, John Nutter, Larry Shirck,
Norm Isler, Fred Smith, and others to a somewhat lesser degree, the
interior siding installation, which began in September, was
completed in June, 1996, along with insulation and exterior siding.
The roof, which may originally been made of thatch, was
constructed of red cedar shakes and installed by Aaron Sturgis, a
highly regarded preservation carpenter of Elliot, Maine. Plumbing
and electrical work took place under contract in parallel with the
carpentry work. The electrical supply line and telephone and
security lines were all run in underground conduits to help maintain
the barn's appearance as it might have been originally. The gas line
was installed in November. Once the building was weathertight the
oak floor boards were laid after resin paper was installed. Oak was
selected as being a good compromise for flooring, recognizing that
the original floor most likely was dirt or at best, field stone which
clearly would not have been in keeping with the currently

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The barn before the roof was completed and the
exterior vertical siding was applied

envisioned usage.

Two of Nutter's clients inadvertently helped with the barn
windows. Both were remodeling their homes and threw out old
window sashes no longer desired, one set of which were the proper
size for the barn; however the glass was modern. The other set had
straw glass panes which was more in keeping with the bam period
but were too large. After both sets had been retrieved from
dumpsters, volunteers over the winter of 1994 re-cut the straw glass
panes and glazed them into the proper sized sashes. Window hinges
were modeled after those on the Capen House and were
subsequently hand made by a New Hampshire craftsman as was
some of the door hardware. Eric Sloan's book was used as a
reference for bam door wooden hardware which volunteer Fred
Smith made in his shop. Main bam door hinges were made by hand
at the Saugus Iron Works Forge by their blacksmith, Curtis White.
Other hinges were donated.

117

A deviation from a purely historic perspective had to do with
insulating the building and providing heat so that it might be used
year round. Rather than have vertical air gaps between siding
boards as might have been employed originally, it was deemed
necessary to insulate the walls and roof. The walls were designed
to have one inch thick vertical pine siding with backing boards along
the outside joints. 2 inch thick foam panels were then sandwiched in
between to result in a 5 V2 inch thick wall with an R value of at least
19. The inside backing boards were ship-lapped to make the
insulation invisible inside the bam. The roof was designed in a
similar manner but with an air gap for ventilation and cedar shakes
on the outside instead of pine siding. Wiring for possible use by
ventilating ceiling fans was also planned in the event that the height
of the barn might cause air stagnation layers. The heating system
design was constrained by the desire for rapid heating for winter
meetings: no visible oil tanks and no chimney. The choice was
made for two gas-fired condensing furnaces operating in a forced
hot air system. These furnaces with their low temperature exhausts
did not require a chimney, the exhaust exiting through the rear
basement wall through plastic pipes. An Essex Gas Company main
ran along Howlett Street, facilitating a connection which was made
on November 18, 1996. The furnaces were installed in the basement
to conserve space and the air ducts hidden under the floor and in a
wall.

As the stmcture began to take shape, the Society directors suggested
that a sprinkler system be considered to protect the bam from fire,
one of the main ways bams disappear. Four other Topsfield barns
had disappeared while this project was underway: one due to fire,
one deliberately destroyed due to it being in the way of new
construction, and two due to neglect, finally being abandoned.

Commonwealth Sprinkler Company of Boxford was contracted and
installed a wet system covering the entire building with the control
valves located in the basement. The system was fed by a 4-inch line

118

running to the Hewlett Street main. The Capen House water line
was subsequently eonneeted to this line as well.

A security system was installed by Essex Alarni Company of
Beverly with some of the work accomplished by volunteers in order
to keep the cost low. The fire alarm system was hard-wired directly
to the Fire Department about 3 blocks away and now includes low
room temperature as well as basement water level warning sensors.
An intruder system was installed at the same time.

After the oak floor was laid, some of the remaining material was
used by Ed DesChene to make the kitchen cabinets. A number of
benches and two chairs were also made, some of which were sold
with the proceeds applied towards completion of the project. Racks
were built by Jan Jansen to store 96 padded chairs purchased, along
with 12 round and 3 rectangular tables. Shelves were installed in the
records room by Jansen who also built display cases plus a stand
made for an artifact display and a lectern. A PA system was given
by Mr. and Mrs. Carleton Porter. Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Peabody
donated a 900-pound millstone from the Hobbs Howlett mill site
from their Camp Meeting Road property which was somewhat
laboriously manhandled into position at the side door for use as an
entrance step. A microwave oven was donated by Mr. and Mrs.
Porter to help furnish the kitchen.

In April 1997 final grading of the property was done by Thompson
followed by power raking and hydro-seeding. An entrance ramp
was constructed and a landscape plan was created by Barbara
Carpenter, who donated plantings appropriate to the period.

By May 1997 the bam was ready for its grand opening which was
held on May 31, 1997 and attended by over 300 people. A plaque
was unveiled listing the names of the key individuals, foundations,
and companies who made the project possible. Some of the key
people and organizations contributing to the project are listed below:

Volunteers:

Lenn Bergsten
Russ Blauser
Bill Burgess
Bob Dow
Dick Carlson
Ed DesChene
Dick Frederickson
Norm Isler
Jan Jansen
Foundations:

Nathaniel & Elizabeth P.

Stevens Foundationtion
Abbott & Dorothy Stevens
Foundation

Eastern Bank Charitable
Foundation

Corporate / Businesses

Abbot Shoe Store
American Legion Post
Ben Nutter Associates
Beverly National Bank
Borden Company
Business Services, Topsfield
Clark Steven Committee
Community Newspapers
David Pierce, CPA
E. A.. Stevens Insurance Co.
Essex Alarm Company
Essex County Farming Assoc.
Evans Industries
Family Bank
GE Elfun Society
Grand Rental of Peabody
Home Depot, Danvers

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Mickie Moore
John Nutter
Bunnie Nutter
Ben Nutter
Carl Porter
Larry Schirck
Fred Smith
Bill Whiting

Cricket Foundation
Arthur H. Wellman Trust
Hurdle Hill Foundation
Anonymous

Ipswich Bay Glass
Jay-By Engineering
Jeff Runnion Associates
Jim Brady Associates
Johnson Quarry, Rockport
Nancy Chailfour, Painting
NBC News

New Meadows Garden Club
New Meadows Golf Club
Maestranzi Brothers
McGraw Hill Company
Nisus Corporation
Nutter-Cognac, Contractors
Osram Sylvania
Pingree School Services
Priscilla Capen Herb Society
Proctor School Children

120

Red Pine Tree Farm
RE Thompson Company
Topsfield Business Council
Topsfield Fair
Topsfield House of Pizza

WR Cargill Insurance Co.
Topsfield Rotary Club
Topsfield Cultural Council

Topsfield Garden Club
Topsfield Lions Club

Town Crier Real Estate

At this writing the barn has been in use for some ten years. In
2006, a typical year, it was rented to 40 private parties and made
available to 23 community organizations, some at no charge. Gross
income in 2006 was $15,645.00. And perhaps most important, the
attendance at Society meetings has far exceeded what was possible
in private homes.

The preservation and accumulation of historical records, a prime
reason for the Society’s existence, has been greatly improved in the
Records Room in the barn. This facility is now climate controlled to
better protect our records. It is equipped with a computer, with an
office grade copying machine, and a start has been made to integrate
our records with those in the Town Library, the Town Hall, and the
Phillips Library in Salem. All these features are far beyond what
could be done in the former Capen House Library.

Since the barn is used for meetings of all kinds, its museum type
displays must necessarily be limited to wall space displays. These
include a musket dating from the Revolutionary War, a flag flown
over the East School in 1794, a quilt made by the ladies of Topsfield
in connection with the 325^*^ anniversary of the town’s
incorporation, a political banner from the 1856 election, and an
exhibit of Indian artifacts and shoes made in Topsfield in the 19^*^
century. It is hoped to add to the display of agricultural artifacts.

Thus Joseph Gould’s barn is once again getting good use some 300
years after it was first built although for a different purpose.

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The Storage Room

122

Revolutionary War gun and 1794 flag

123

Kitchen

The Fremont banner from the 1856 election

124

HISTORY OF THE MASCONOMET REGIONAL SCHOOL
DISTRICT

By Donald Doliber. Assistant Principal Masconomet High School

The Masconomet Regional School District is comprised of three
scenie, suburban communities - Boxford, Middleton, and Tops-
field. These towns are former agricultural communities that have
used their plentiful open space to attract business and in large part
upper-middle class professional families.

In the years before 1950, the three communities recognized the need
for quality education and started the process of a regional
educational experience. In the early 1950s Topsfield voted down a
regional proposal to join with Hamilton- Wenham and Manchester.
Students from Middleton attended schools in Danvers for the ninth
grade and Salem for the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades. Boxford
went to Georgetown, Andover, North Andover, and Topsfield
schools. Topsfield students were enrolled at the Proctor School.

The regional experience offered the communities many
opportunities. Towns would now have a direct voice, through
representation, in the running of their own junior and high school.
Young people could receive the use of more advanced educational
facilities, more sports opportunities, and enriched courses of study.
Each town school committee appointed three regional planning
committee members to propose a regional agreement for the voters'
approval. Boxford chose Rosamond L. Lord, Franklin Roberts, and
Richard Bowler, Jr. Middleton selected Richard E. Quinn, Robert T.
Sperry, and Rosamond B. Bastable. Topsfield appointed J.
Harrison Holman, John Robertson, and Godfrey G. Torrey. On
February 7, 1956, the newly created Regional School Committee
from Boxford, Topsfield, and Middleton met at the home of J.
Harrison Holman to discuss building plans. These individuals drew
up a proposed regional agreement, which was approved, by the state
on August 9, 1956. An informational booklet with the agreement.

125

recommendations, and question-answer facts was sent to each
household in the Tri-Town community. At simultaneous town
meetings held in each community on October 1, 1956 the
agreement was discussed and voted in the affirmative. Town
meeting approval indicated overwhelming support: Boxford - 252
to 15, Middleton- 335 to 59, and Topsfield- 446 to 81.

On November 7, 1956 the local school superintendents Johnson,
Dower, and Smith worked with the new Regional Committee and
the School Building Assistance Commission on Educational
Specifications to develop plans. In January 1957 the Regional
Committee took an option to purchase land subject to the land
engineer's approval. The same month, the architectural firm of
Rich and Associates was retained after a four-month search for an
architect. On May 22, 1957 Mr. C. Newton Heath, Superintendent
of Schools in Stoneham, was selected as an educational building
consultant.

On July 1, 1957 the first piece of land (thirty-eight acres known as
Indian Head Farm) on Endicott Road in Boxford. was officially
purchased from Mr. and Mrs. Frederick McComiskey for $27,500.
This location was at a point closest to each of the three town
boundaries. No sooner had the land been purchased than the
Regional Committee on July 8, 1957 hired Mr. Julius Mueller as
Educational Consultant, and on August 1, 1958 as Superintendent-
Principal.

By January 1958 the Massachusetts School Building Assistance
Commission gave the final approval to the architectural plans
submitted. On February 13, 1958, E.H. Porter of Peabody,
Massachusetts, the lowest bidder, was approved. The state gave
approval to the bond issue in March, 1958, and E. H. Porter signed
the building contract for the contract price of $ 1 ,8 1 6, 38 1 .

On April 14, 1958, local town officials and regional school
committee members held the groundbreaking ceremonies.

126

Construction at the site began immediately in April 1958. Samuel
Crabtree was selected as the Equipment Consultant and William L.
Danforth served as the Clerk of the Works. In May 1958, the
district bonds (twenty-year issue) sold at low interest rate of 3
percent.

The first Masconomet Regional School Committee was composed
of the following members:

Boxford

Merton Barrows
Richard Bowler, Jr. (Sec)
Rosamond Lord
Franklin Roberts
Louis Vrettos

Middleton

Rosamond Bastable
Richard Quinn (V.Chm)
Robert Sperry

Topsfield

J. Harrison Holman (Chm)
M. Douglas Banus
John Robertson
George Torrey

Superintendent Mueller assumed his duties immediately and began
a search for faculty members. He invited the nineteen teachers in
the three towns whose jobs were to be abolished by the opening of
the school to be interviewed. Mr. Rodney C. Dresser, Principal of
the Proctor School (Topsfield), was selected as an Assistant
Principal. Mr. Mueller drove all over New England to observe and
to interview various applicants. In one incident, Mr. Mueller in his
car slid off the Maine Turnpike twice on his way to such an
interview appointment. By the end of January 1959, sixteen more
faculty members were hired.

In March 1959, parents began to register their children for
admission and course selection in the new school. On August 1,
1959, department chairmen worked on the course of study for the
new school. On September 1, 1959 all new teachers were in the
building preparing for the opening of school.

In 1959, selected students (listed below) with the newly hired
superintendent, Julius Mueller, served as the Student Steering
Committee which made decisions about the planning of and the
running of the school.

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Boxford:

Rodney Chadwick
Martha Jane Meeker
Herbert L. Vrettos

Middleton:

Donna Jeanice Coffin
Kenneth Charles Hackett
Robert Daniel Leary
Barry T. Stevens

Topsfield:

Douglas Peter King
Leland Mann

From September 9 to 11, 1959 student orientation were conducted
in half-day sessions. On September 14, 1959 seven hundred and
fifty students and fifty-two staff members entered the main school
building. A Student Planning Committee of nineteen students ran
the academic year (1959-1960) from grades 9-12.

On Wednesday, January 28, 1957 the Regional School Committee
cast ballots six times and finally selected the name Masconomet
for the new school district. Other names such as "Harmony" and
"Sacagawea" after a local camp name were some of the names
considered. The proper pronunciation is MAS-CON-OM-ET.

The formal dedication ceremony was held on Sunday, October 18,
1959 at the school. Dr. Asa S. Knowles, President, Northeastern
University of Boston gave an address. A souvenir program was
presented to each person who attended the occasion.

Masconomet (Masconomo, Maskanomet, Musquanomenit),
Sachem of the Agawam tribe (Ipswich-Gloucester-Tri-Town area)
was noted for his friendly cooperation with the early European
settlers who inhabited the North Shore area of Massachusetts. In
1637 Chief Masconomet sold all his lands in Ipswich to John
Winthrop. Jr. A second deed was signed in 1638 for the sum of
twenty pounds.

Thousands of years of the local Native American encampments
occurred on and near the location of the school facilities. This area
located along the banks of the Ipswich River and the Fish brook
stream was a perfect work area particularly for their summer
encampments. A collection of Native American artifacts of the

128

Agawam tribe (most from the Cyrus Killam collection) found on
the property is exhibited at the Masconomet Regional High School.
In the 1970s archaeology classes under professional supervision
uncovered artifacts, which were added to the Killam collection.

School sports teams are called the "Chieftains" in honor of the
Sachem of the Agawams. In 1999, the name "Masconomet" was
registered as a trademark.

Building Phases of the School District

Phase I (April 1958- September 14, 1959)

The main two-story building which housed a cafeteria and
auditorium plus an attached gymnasium was constructed. Athletic
fields were laid out in 1959-1960. The architect was Rich,
Phinney, Lang, and Cote of Boston, Massachusetts. The builder
was E. H. Porter Construction Co. of Peabody, Massachusetts.
The gross cost of the project was $2, 220,000.

Masconomet High School in 1959

129

In 1961 the three towns approved $75,000 to develop plans for a
separate Junior High wing . Plans originally called for the new
addition to house a population of 850 students, but this was
reduced to 700 students. The wing would be attached in order to
share specialized and core facilities. A recommendation was made
to purchase 25-30 more acres in case two separate buildings
needed to be built in the future. This last recommendation was not
accepted.

A 1961-1962 Master Long Range Plan called for a central library,
improved science labs, and a central cafeteria. (Adopted April,
1963 by the School Committee)

Phase II (July 2,1963-November 16,1964):

Increased school numbers caused a junior high (Grades 7-8) wing
and rooms attached by a glass corridor to be added to the main
building. The new wing was occupied in 1 964, but the occupancy
of the field house was held up by the installation of its floor. The
architects were Rich & Tucker Associates of Boston,
Massachusetts . The builder was Frasca Construction of Lynn,
Massachusetts. The gross cost was $1, 875,000. The bond rate for
new construction was at the low interest rate of 3 per cent,
identical to original bond issue.

A new athletic field (two acre area near the end of the football field
was made from the fill taken in the construction of the JHS wing)
was ready in spring 1965.

There was a major water seepage problem in 1965/1966. Water
from the showers ran under the locker floor into the gymnasium
floor. The wooden floor broke and buckled. Openings were made
in the wall to determine if the damage was caused by roof damage.
Henry B. Byors Plumbing Contractors of Marblehead,
Massachusetts completed new piping and showerheads, for

130

$4,785.72. The new gym floor was installed by Republic Floors,
Inc. of Braintree, Massachusetts, for $14,690. Total cost for the
damages was $19,376.

A 1966 proposal (called the Master plan addition) called for an
expanded cafeteria, new library, several new classrooms, and an
administrative office in the JHS wing, expanded PE facilities, and
an updated boiler room. The architect was Warren H. Ashley of
West Hartford, CT. A special school committee building
committee requested a bond issue of $2,750,000 from the February
town meetings. Boxford town meeting supported the bond,
Topsfield rejected it, and Middleton never had the opportunity to
vote on the issue.

On March 15, 1968, the bond issue was re-submitted to town
meetings. The 1968 booklet entitled ’The Next Step for
Masconomef ' was sent to each voter with the plans. At the March
19th town meetings , the bond was again defeated. Boxford voted
yes and Topsfield and Middleton voted no. The school
administration had to make arrangements to handle the
overcrowding which led to double sessions in the Junior High
School.

In November 1968, at special town meetings, $93,000 was
approved to draw up new plans. A group looked at the Maryknoll
Novitiate site in Topsfield as a possible JHS location, but this
alternative was rejected. Town approval came for 21 more
classrooms, new library, expanded cafe and PE facilities, and a
new boiler room. In November 1969 ground was broken for Phase
III construction.

Phase III (November 1969-1972):

A new expanded field house, library, and cafeteria plus rooms in
the J and K wings met the further increased student enrollment.
Some classrooms were ready in the fall of 1970, but the floor of

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the field house was held up in a yearlong litigation over bidding
procedures. Gross costs were $2,146,423.

In 1973-1974 the Massachusetts Highway Department widened
Route 95. Endicott Road needed to be improved and thus part of
the front horseshoe area and the highway side property was taken
by the state. A snow fence was installed during the construction.
Major maintenance called for the replacement of the roof on the
main building in 1980-1981. W.S. Aiken of Salem, Massachusetts,
the second lowest bidder, was given the job for $599, 640.

In 1987 a new bond issue allowed for new boilers, roof gas heating
units, an emergency generator, a new roof, a new fuel tank, new
gym bleachers, re-paved tennis courts, resurfaced parking lots, and
replacement of track and baseball field areas.

Phase IV: (1999-2003)

Increased enrollment necessitated a new three-storied high school
building along side of the older 1959 building. The renovated
older high school was to become the new middle school. The field
house and gymnasium were to be renovated and the older junior
high school was to be removed. Two new playing fields and more
parking were to be added. The architectural firm was Architectural
Resources of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Estimated total costs
were $54,000,000.

The Masconomet Regional School District opened bids for the new
construction on December 14, 1999. Five general contractors
submitted bids (all within a 5.1 % band) which were opened by
Building Committee Chairman, Robert Kmetz of Topsfield,
assisted by Architectural Resources of Cambridge, the firm that
designed the project. The lowest bid was approximately $39
million, well below the budgeted $42,987,674 projection. On
January 31, 2000, the ground was cleared of snow to begin work
on the new high school addition. Ground breaking ceremonies

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took place on February 16, 2000 at 9:00 AM. Work began
immediately digging holes and moving soil.

Fonns were poured and underground pipes were laid in March. On
April 24, 2000 the first load of steel girders arrived on site and the
next day some of the girders were upright with cross beams
attached to them. On May 15, 2000 the crane used to lift the steel
into place let go and crashed to the ground. This piece of
apparatus missed the High School Library by twenty-three feet.
No injuries took place, but an eighteen- wheel truck loaded with
steel had its cab crushed in.

Masconomet Regional High School entrance

On the second day of school in September 2000, the construction
company hit an eighteen-inch high-pressure gas main next to the
occupied High School (C-Wing). The entire wing was evacuated
and moved to Trinity Church. There were no injuries.

133

Friday, June 22, 2001 was the last day of classes in the old 1959-
2001 High School. The moving of all equipment from this
building was completed on Saturday, June 30, 2001. A major water
leak caused by a defective sprinkler took place on July 5, 2001.
Damage was done to new classrooms and some offices.

The newly renovated Middle School building (the old High School
structure) opened on September 5, 2003. Cleanout of the old
Junior High structure began in July, but faced labor issues with the
construction workers. Officially the destruction of the old Junior
High wing began on September 10th. With the removal of the
Junior High wing and paving, the new student parking lot was
opened when students returned in January 2003 from their winter
vacation. The final connector hallway from the high school and
the dining areas was finished in February 2003. All new and older
fields were completed in the fall of 2003 .

Land Acquisitions

The Regional School Committee purchased the main plot of land
(thirty- eight acres known as Indian Head Farm) from Mr. and
Mrs. Frederick McComiskey for $27,500 in July, 1957.

The Dana Killam property of twenty-five acres adjacent to the
original school site was acquired for $50,000 on May 10, 1961.

The Cyrus Killam property of 8.8 acres, adjacent to the Dana
Killam parcel, was purchased for $15,000 on January 16, 1962.

The Ronald Perley property of 7.8 acres on Rowley Bridge Road,
Topsfield, was purchased for $ 1,000. on February 7, 1962.

In July, 1963 the school committee exchanged low marshland for
land from the Essex County Greenbelt Association.

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The school committee accepted land transferred from Daniel R.
Pinkham, abutting Endicott Road, for $644.40 on August 10, 1964.
This strip of registered land was not needed for building purposes,
but allowed the buried drainpipe to be on the parking lot property.

7.9 acres of land on Rowley Bridge Road, Topsfield, were
obtained from Mrs. Martha W. Ingraham of Brookline,
Massachusetts in 1966. This was in exchange for 6.5 acres of river
meadowland and for $10,950. Negotiations with two other owners
of twenty acres were conducted.

5.7 acres of land were obtained from Mr. and Mrs. David Lampert
of Topsfield in 1966/1967 in exchange for giving up a thirty- foot
right of way held by the district on their property plus $10,000.
This now gave the district 83.9 acres (21.2 acres in Topsfield and

62.7 acres in Boxford).

SOME INTERESTING MASCONOMET FACTS
Dedicated Areas:

The Henry Follansbee Long Auditorium is named for a Topsfield
resident (1883-1956) who served as a State Commissioner of
Corporations and Taxation for thirty-three years.

The Dr. Franklin C. Roberts Library is named for a former
Boxford School Committee member and dedicated college
educator who helped create the Masconomet Regional School
District.

The Archibald Jones Gymnasium is named for a Middleton citizen
(1899-1948) who served as a state representative from 1935 -1938.

135

The Henry F. Long Auditorium

The Dr. Franklin C. Roberts Library

136

The ‘‘Bucky” Benson Field House

137

The James L. Melvin Flagpole named for a 1965 Masconomet
graduate killed in Vietnam.

The Louise O. C. Swenson Science Area named for the first
Masconomet Science Department Head (1959- 1974).

The Walter B. Roberts Football Field named for a former
Masconomet PE teacher and football coach (1959- 1981).

The Herschal G. "Bucky" Benson Field House named for a former
Masconomet PE teacher and coach (1959-1975).

Students killed in the service of their country

- John D. Lawson (’62) (1944-1970) killed in aircraft explosion
Phu Bay Thau, Phien Province, Vietnam on September 1, 1970.

- James L. Melvin ('65) (1947-1967) killed in action on November
26, 1967 in Vietnam.

Concluding Comments

Many alumni have become pilots, architects, writers, journalists,
engineers, teachers, lawyers, doctors, stockbrokers, scientists, and
professional military people. Many have become noted in fields of
their employment.

The school facilities are used for many purposes beside school
functions. These include town athletic organizations, model town
organizations, hobby groups, show groups, scouting units, sport
feeder programs, sports camps, local-county-state police
organizations, extension school programs, local play and orchestra
groups, town meetings, and the Massachusetts Emergency
Management Agency.

138

The High School has issued an annual yearbook, Mitobo, since
1960. The Junior High School issued their first Pathfinder in
1974.

The new Masconomet buildings include 85 classrooms all of
which have Internet access. There are 875 computers in the
district being supported by 25 servers.

Outstanding student- athletes from Masconomet Regional High
School have won the annual Salem News Student- Athlete award
six times, including three of the last eight winners, to give them
more victories than any other school in the area.

The total enrollment in the Middle and High School is
approximately 2500 students.

139

CAPEN HOUSE EVALUATION AND REPAIRS

By Jan Jansen

In 2001 the consultant firm of Finch and Rose of Beverly surveyed
the condition of the Capen House to determine as fully as possible
how much of the present building dates from the 1 1^^ century , and
what changes were made by George Francis Dow in the 1913
restoration. A very detailed report was presented to the Society by
William R. Finch, dated April 1, 2002, with many photos
supporting his findings. The report also recommended repairs that
should be made. In a report dated October 26, 2005 Norman Isler
reviewed the work that was done in fulfilling the recommendations
of the Finch and Rose report. Both reports are preserved in the
files of the Historical Society.

This article is a brief summary of both reports with extensive
quotes from each along with some of the photographs. The study
was funded by a matching grant from the Essex National Heritage
Commission. The restoration and repair work was funded by
grants from the General Electric Employees Good Neighbor Fund,
The Stevens Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
the Historical Society’s resources, and particularly many
contributions from Topsfield people and businesses.

An appendix to the Finch report reviews ownership and occupancy
details and all the work done to the Capen House for which records
are available since its original construction. The chronology
follows.

CHRONOLOGY OF IMPORTANT DATES, DOCUMENTS,
AND RECENT REPAIR RECORDS

1683 Initial construction by Rev. Joseph Capen

1725 House passes to Capen’s son Nathaniel Capen; no inventory
has been found.

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1748 Nathaniel Capen dies in March; Inventory and Will of
Nathaniel Capen.

1747-58 Series of transactions: in 1747 before the death of
Nathaniel Capen half interest in the house is sold to a John Baker
of Boxford, with the other passing to Baker on Capen's death in
1748. After a complex series of transactions the entire house
eventually passes to John Emerson. Emerson did not live in the
house, but it has been conjectured that his daughter and her
husband John Baker may have occupied it.

1725-61 Major renovation of house: first period casement
windows replaced with wood sash, walls sheathed and rec-
lapboarded. Date range is conjectural based on changes of
occupancy.

1774 Thomas Emerson inherits house and property from his
father John Emerson but did not live in it based on recollections by
Rev. Wm. Bentley in 1814.

1798 Emerson's property is listed in the Direct tax of 1798, but
it is not clear if any of the listed buildings is the Parson Capen
House.

1813 Emerson's sons Joseph and William inherit the house and
property. Dow speculates the house was used to house hired farm
hands.

1814 Rev. William Bentley of Salem visits Topsfield and
describes the house in his diary as "nearly in its primitive state & is
the place to receive the families of the men who labor on the lands
around, Mr. Emerson keeping 600 acres in cultivation & use
around him. Mr. Capen's house is of two stories with jutting
second stories & a very sharp & high roof. The beams & joists are
naked within but the floor timbers are less than usual at that time
of building."

141

1835-86 House and property passes to Harriet Josephine
Emerson Holmes and husband Charles H. Holmes. With some title
complications it remains with Holmes until his death in 1886 in
Maine. Holmes lived in the adjacent Averill House (then
parsonage) until his wife's death in 1849 and again in the 1880's.
Whether he ever lived in the Capen House is not known. During
the later part of this period the house was rented by Holmes to a
Mrs. Alonzo Kneeland (see 1894 entry).

1835 -86 At some time during this period substantial renovations
occur at the house including much replastering on circular sawn
lath, the installation of ceilings on the underside of the joists, the
finishing of the two attic rooms and the introduction of 6/6 sash in
the 1 8^^ century openings.

The Capen House in early 1880s. The lean-to shack served as a vestibule
for the 18^'' century west entry door. The arrow points to defective flashing
and roofing at its junction to the gable wall were likely the cause of the
extensive decay in the east girt still visible in the Hall.

142

The Capen House a few years later. The arrow points to the one surviving
gable bracket that is still present in the west facade. The windows have 19***
century 6/6 sash in them. The house had been occupied by tenants for over
100 years at the time of this photo.

1886-1913 Ownership of the house is cloudy.

1894 Description of the house and drawing of exterior in

Essex County Mercury Weekly Salem Gazette. Article states house
has been occupied by Mrs. Alonzo Kneeland for the past 40 years
(since c.1854) and describes the house as having three rooms
within each of the original two first floor rooms, six rooms on the
second floor “finished in modem style” and two finished rooms in
the attic.

1913 House acquired by Topsfield Historical Society and

restored by George Francis Dow. William Sumner Appleton visits
the house on October 5 and 13, 1913 taking photographs and
making a few written notes of the work in progress. Photographs
and a few pages of correspondence are in the SPNEA Archives.

143

The Capen House shortly after the restoration. The clapboards and trim
were left to weather naturally, and did not receive any opaque finishes until
the current treatment of dark brown stain was initiated in the 1970s.

1914 March 9 letter from Dow to Appleton responding to

questions as to the evidence for the drops and brackets, the water
table, and ehimney. Mareh 14 letter of Appleton to arehiteet W.D.
Austin of 50 Bromfield Street, Boston regarding the ineomplete
state of measured drawings of the house that Austin was preparing
showing the house frame. These drawings have never been located
unless they became the ones eventually done by Donald Millar.

1916 Drawings of the house as restored by Dow were

published in a portfolio titled Measured Drawings of Some
Colonial and Georgian Houses by Donald Millar, the Arehitectural
Book Publishing Company, New York City. All other drawings of
the house derive from these, including the Historic American
Building Society drawings. The set of blueprints of Millar's
drawings owned by the HABS has a substantial error in the width
of the ehimney bay as drawn. The published drawings are correet.

144

1 920 Article by Donald Millar on the Restoration of the Capen
House published in Old-Time New England, the journal of
SPNEA. The same article was also published in the Architeetural
Reeord.

1 924 Reproduetions of the hall and stair hall construeted as
period rooms in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art’s
Ameriean Wing with assistanee by Dow.

1935 Publication of Everyday Life in the Massachusetts Bay
Colony by Dow, whieh ineluded photographs of the restored
Capen House.

1935-7 Photographs of the exterior taken for the Historie
Ameriean Building Survey.

1936 Death of George Francis Dow

1938 One page of a 3 page letter to Miss Susan Hoke

Eisenhart from William Sumner Appleton regarding the Capen
House questioning the eoneept elosing in the front over- hang with
a board, and diseussing the laek of evidenee for Dow's window
restoration beyond perhaps a single casement sash at the Essex
Institute with reetangular lights.

1946 Unspeeified "repairs" for $65.75 by E. M. Dow (G. F.
Dow’s brother who was a local contractor )

1 947 Work to oil burner and pumping out eellar.

1 950 Shingle and elapboard work for $800 by E.M. Dow; paint
and whitewashing work by Elmer Foye.

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The Capen House in 1936 after it had weathered for 23 years without paint.
The rear shed was replaced in 1974. The furnace chimney, a tall brick
stack, was reduced in height in 1999 and covered by clapboards. It was
taken down some years later when the Capen House furnace was removed
as recommended by Finch.

1958-59 Estimates for repairs to house including new roof with
cedar shakes rather than shingles, west basement framing,
regrading north wall, renailing loose clapboards, and repairs to rear
shed. It is not clear how much was actually done such as the roof.
Architect Jack Peirce was involved. $817.16 spent.

1960 Work rebuilding the rear shed possibly including staining
of house; $539.46.

1964 Major renovation of second floor caretaker's apartment.
Specifications and set of plans were drawn by Jack Peirce showing
second floor before and after the work. Specs also called for some
other work including capping chimney with copper, applying Dow
silicone to it and the first floor fireplace bricks. Some of the
specified work does not appear to have been done.

146

1962 Report of the House Committee that “there were

indications of some settling in a section of the house foundation”
that was to receive further investigation.

1 964 May 22 report on condition of house from restoration
contract of Philip W. Baker of Antrim N.H. (related to Roy Baker)
included recommendation to replace the east sill. There is no
indication Baker was hired to do the recommended work.

1971 Repairs by John Lebel of Danvers to parge interior of
chimney flues to 2nd floor ceiling, parge exterior in attic and
remove cooper cap installed in 1964 including state of 2nd floor
fire boxes reported in Jack Peirce memo.

1 974 Plans and specifications by Jack Peirce for rebuilding rear
shed with work done by Contractor William A. Berry and Son of
Danvers.

1975 Massachusetts Historical Commission grant for repairs,
clapboard replacement and painting to exterior, and replacement of
furnace to specifications by SPNEA Consulting Services architect
David Hart.

1979 Fumigation for powder post beetles by a Mr. Hogan for

Replacing
the Capen
House
roof

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1 998 Re-roofmg of house with red eedar shakes by Aaron

Sturgis of Eliot, Maine. The tall brick furnace chimney was
replaced by a shorter steel stack encased with plywood and clap-
boards.

The Finch and Rose report is a lengthy document of 45 pages. It
goes into great detail on the condition of the Capen House and an
evaluation of what is left of the 17^*^ century house along with an
evaluation of the restoration by George Francis Dow in 1913. The
report also suggests what the Society might do to increase its
conformity to 17^^ century norms and to improve its museum-like
qualities to better serve as a teaching tool. Summarizing the study
goes beyond the scope of this presentation, rather the reader is
advised to study the Finch and Rose report itself instead. The final
section of the report is worth reproducing in its entirety however.

“SIGNIFICANCE AND INTERPRETATION ISSUES”

This study has confirmed that much of Dow’s 1913 restoration is
by today's standards of scholarship highly inaccurate and dated.
Dow was concerned equally with providing an effective stage set
for his concepts about 17th century life, and with preserving actual
17th century historic fabric. Where the fabric was missing or
inscrutable, he apparently had no problem inventing it to create the
desired overall effect. Today we are biased towards the
preservation of historic fabric and recreating missing features only
when we believe there is sound evidence based on a building
archeology approach and accurate documentation.

Dow’s restoration of the Capen House effectively preserved the
essential first period components of the house that had survived up
to 1913 such as the exposed frame of the ceilings and walls, the
bracket on the west gable, and the clay insulation below the parlor
floor. The other brackets and drops restored on the exterior are
based on reasonably sound evidence. Without his efforts the house
probably would not have even survived at all.

148

On the other hand, in the spaces that are restored, he removed all
materials that were not obviously from the first period without
recording them, and provided new finishes such as the ubiquitous
unpainted feather edged sheathing that is not remotely accurate to
the 17th century but created the atmosphere he sought. The
windows are an adaptation of 17th century glazing applied to the
18th century openings and the application of clapboards and trim
generally follows 18th century practice rather than the 17th
century. The restored features are in some cases, such as the
sheathing, identical to his restoration two years earlier of the John
Ward House at the Essex Institute, and he used many of the same
contractors in both restorations.

In Dow’s time, both the Ward House and the Capen House were
widely publicized as outstanding and perfect examples of
restoration to the 17th century. The Capen House hall and stair hall
were duplicated as period rooms in New York's Metropolitan
Museum of Art where they remained on display until the period
rooms displays were reinterpreted a few years ago. The house has
been featured as a primary example of the first period in most 20th
century architectural history texts. Photographs of the interior and
exterior by Samuel Chamberlain have popularized the image
created by Dow in many publications since the 1930's.

In evaluating the significance of the Parson Capen House and
determining appropriate future interpretation there are two distinct
themes. One is clearly the preserved first period fabric, such as the
frame along with the general exterior form of the house, which is
accurate to the 17th century. Considered by itself this fabric has a
high degree of integrity and warrants its status as one of the
primary surviving examples in the country.

The other theme is the restored features and overall effect of the
house created by Dow in 1913 as a primary example of Dow's
substantial influence on the early 20th century preservation
movement. Other than the application of paint on the exterior and

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the newer clapboards, the restored portions of the house remain
essentially as presented by Dow in 1913.

Most of the other houses restored by Dow are either in private
hands where they have undergone considerable further change, or
are owned by institutions that are not actively interpreting them. In
the case of the John Ward House, the Peabody-Essex Museum is
considering a major re-restoration of the building that would
substantially alter Dow's interpretation.

Most other first period Essex County houses that were restored as
museum structures in the early 20th century have been repeatedly
restored and reinterpreted so that they no longer convey their initial
“restored” image. Examples include the Whipple House in
Ipswich, the Balch House in Beverly, and the Claflin House in
Wenham, where the initial interpretations were substantially
changed by Roy Baker in the 1950's. In these cases further
reinterpretation to make their presentation more accurate in the
light of current scholarship would be justifiable as long as the
changes do not destroy significant early fabric.

In the case of the Capen House, any effort to reinterpret Dow's
“mistakes” will simply be another stage set based on our current
understanding of period typical features, because there is not
sufficient evidence in the house for a more accurate restoration of
most features. The limited aspects that could easily be redone with
more accuracy, such as the details of clapboard and trim
installation, will simply muddy the interpretive waters if a
significant part of what is being presented is Dow's interpretation.

It is therefore recommended that the Society's interpretation should
focus both on the actual first period frame, and on presenting the
restored aspects of the house as an intact example of Dow's vision
and the early 20th century attitude towards 17th century America.
The unrestored parlor chamber should be left largely as is and used
as gallery space. The hall chamber could be used as a study room

150

by removing some of the plaster finishes to expose the unrestored
frame and ceiling and displaying interpretive panels about Dow’s
restoration and first period architecture. The current bathroom and
kitchen fixtures in the rear should be removed to get the plumbing
out of the museum portions of the house. These spaces could then
be reconfigured as a museum shop and storage area. On the
exterior, the underside of the overhang should be left open to
expose the framing, as Dow initially treated it. Although not
critical, it would be desirable to eventually restore the exterior to
Dow's original interpretation of unpainted, weathered oak clap-
boards and trim.

The 1913 restoration work included converting the upstairs rooms
in the house into a custodian’s apartment, and, over the years,
between 1914 and 1972, it was occupied by a series of custodians.
When the Town Library was expanded in 1972, however, the
Topsfield Room was eliminated to make room for additional
stacks. At that point all the artifacts were moved to the Capen
House into the space that had served as the custodian apartment.
Thus the kitchen/bath facilities and the heating system in the house
were no longer required. The Finch report recommended their
removal, which agrees with a tentative long standing goal of the
Society to convert the space into an area featuring Topsfield
history. Having an on-site custodian is nevertheless very desirable,
however, and some thought and preliminary thinking has been
directed towards building a separate studio apartment for such a
person(s). Since the Capen House is open only during the summer,
heating is unnecessary, and, for many other reasons, better
eliminated.

The findings and recommendations of the Finch and Rose
consulting firm were implemented soon after their report was
released. It began with a fund raising campaign after cost
estimates for the several projects had been assembled. The
original cost estimate, made in June 2003, came to $43,786. After
a few details of the project were either eliminated or paired back.

151

the final estimate came to $30,650. The reductions involved
extensive use of materials on hand and the use of volunteer labor
(mostly Norman Isler and William Whiting) in place of contract
labor for certain tasks. The actual cost came to about $23,000. not
counting the cost of removing the kitchen/bath facilities and the
heating system, or any major changes in the design of the upstairs
rooms. As stated, the funding came from several foundations, and
businesses and people of Topsfield.

The report by Norman Isler describes in detail the repairs that were
made in response to the Finch recommendations. The following is
a brief summary of the work that was done.

1. WINDOWS A number of window
replacement of the bottom member due
to squirrel damage from chewing and
some second floor trim boards were
weathered beyond repair. Squirrels got
into the building either by way of the
chimney or through unintended left
open windows. They then chewed
window frames in an effort to escape.

sashes required repair or

Window trim removed

2. CLAPBOARDS AND TRIM Clapboard siding replacement
fell into two categories: One, replacement because of clapboards
being removed to gain structural repair access that were
consequentially not reusable; and two, selective clapboard
replacement due to their severely weathered condition. Inspection
of the house's siding disclosed at least three different types had
been used at different periods. Hand split white oak appears to
have been Dow's choice and is characterized by short lengths of 5
to 6 feet, scarfed joints and rough surface finish. Machined cedar
clapboards were also found, characterized by longer lengths,
smooth finish and butt joints. A third type was pine, similar to the
cedar.

152

Attempts were made with cedar clapboards to produce the surface
texture of the white oak variety by rough sanding, propane
torching, steam and a special file but none of these techniques
proved satisfactory. White oak clapboards had always been felt to
be the best replacement choice and finally a mill in Maine was
located that had a white oak log about six feet long and a foot in
diameter that was radially sawn to produce about 550 linear feet of
clapboard, sufficient to cover both replacement categories. The
surface was rough sanded to remove the circular saw marks and
the ends scarfed. The accompanying photo shows one location
where the siding was replaced. It is recommended that any future
siding replacement be made with the white oak variety.

Replaced siding on east side following structural repairs

The fragile condition of the house became evident while replacing
the clapboards. The initial plan was to replace all the clapboards
having butt ends with ones having scarfed ends as well as
replacing those having a smooth finish. A decision was made,
however, to minimize the extent of the replacement due to the
fragile nature of the house. This over-ruled the desire to have the
house more closely resemble the appearance supposedly desired by
Dow; namely to have short white oak clapboards with scarfed
ends.

153

The initial plan to restain the entire house was reconsidered in light
of limited clapboard replacement and the fact that the newly
stained boards closely matched the existing stain.

3. CHIMNEY REBUILDING The chimney was in poor
condition with spalled bricks and mortar that was incompatible
with the bricks. Pieces of both brick and mortar were failing off
with some landing on the front door entranceway creating a
personnel hazard. The chimney had clearly deteriorated beyond its
useful life and was in need of complete replacement from the roof
line up. In addition, flue dampers, which had been installed about
ten years ago, had been sized much smaller than the flue openings
by the installer, thus causing poor draft in what had previously
been properly drawing flues.

Against this background, a search was made to locate a mason
contractor experienced in Colonial era masonry. At the suggestion
of Aaron Sturgis, Rod Bishop, a mason from Connecticut
experienced in early American masonry, was invited to inspect the
chimney and subsequently hired to totally replace the chimney
from just below the roof line up. Precautions were taken to prevent
the possibility of roof damage from both the removal of the old
chimney and construction of the new chimney. We show a photo
of the scaffolding along with a picture of the finished chimney.

Morin Restoration brick was chosen as being the closest available
to the existing brick in size, color and texture. Lime based mortar
was used which was both historically appropriate and compatible
with the chosen brick. As the old masonry was removed two
additional flues were uncovered, one at either end of the chimney.
They had been covered with copper plates. This confirmed what
had long been suspected: that in 1913 when Dow installed the
steam radiator heating system, he walled off the two upstairs
fireplaces. As part of the restoration effort these two flues were
again sealed with copper plates. Flue dampers were installed in the
working flues that were properly sized and they now draw as was

154

intended by the original builders. The dampers are operated by
stainless steel cables running down the flues into the fireplaces.
The new flue linings were mated with the existing linings so that
the joints are virtually invisible.

Chimney scaffolding The finished chimney

4. SITE DRAINAGE Although the Capen House is located near
the top of a knoll, there is a rise in the terrain at the rear of the
property which allows surface water to drain towards the rear of
the house, leading to dampness in both cellar holes which can then
infiltrate the rest of the house. In addition, there was no gravel All
next to the rear sill so that moisture tended to be retained by the
soil thus adding to the problem. Since the house has no gutters any
rain or snow falling on the rear roof would ultimately collect in this
area with no runoff, thus adding to the moisture problem. At the
furnace chimney foundation, a low pocket existed which tended to
hold surface water, which had rotted out the water table board on
both sides of the chimney with the rot extending into the sill beam.

To correct this long standing drainage problem two French drains
were installed as shown in the following sketch by Norman Isler.
Prior to beginning work, several test holes were dug to verify the
location of the underground power and telephone cables that had
been installed years ago to eliminate the unsightly and
inappropriate overhead cables then being used. The left drain’s

155

depth was dictated by these cables' depth at the left rear corner of
the house. Both drains began with two catch basins installed at the
location of roof runoff from the valleys on either side of the library
stairwell. Four inch diameter perforated PVC pipe was then laid in
one foot deep by two feet wide trenches dug along the house rear
wall which were then lined with heavy duty plastic sheeting and
back filled with 3/4inch double washed gravel. Regular PVC pipe
was then used to lead out to the ground surface, one towards
Howlett Street and the other alongside the herb garden fence.

Upon the consultant's recommendation, all water containing
systems in the house were removed as a precaution against
potential water damage to either the house or its contents. Indeed,
sometime ago a water line leading up to the second floor in the
right gable end of the house did freeze and burst, thus attesting to
the validity of the recommendation. The condition was fortunately
discovered before any significant damage occurred.

5. BASEMENT DAMPNESS To carry out the consultant's
recommendation the furnace, oil burner, oil tank, steam radiators,
kitchen and bathroom sinks, toilet and all associated piping were
removed. Heating pipe holes in the second floor were plugged.
The water supply was turned off by the Topsfield Water
Department at the junction of the house branch line with the 4 inch

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main coming in from Howlett Street to the Gould Bam. The water
meter was also removed by the department.

Plaster damage in the second floor display room which was likely
caused by dampness was repaired and the room repainted.
Basement debris was removed to a dumpster which was also used
for old briek and mortar from the replaced ehimney.

High levels of humidity existed in the cellar holes, particularly the
left hole which had a dirt floor. Scattered debris was also present in
the left cellar thus adding to the problem. The debris was removed
and a decision made to pour a concrete floor over a plastic
moisture barrier to eliminate the dirt floor as a moisture source. It
was recognized that the pouring would alter the original fabric of
the cellar hole. However, it was felt that, on balance, it was a better
approach than to leave moisture bearing soil in plaee.

On very humid summer days beads of moisture still formed on the
cellar first floor beams and floor board underside, even after
pouring the concrete floor. A large capacity dehumidifier was
purchased and installed in the left cellar. The dehumidifier had its
own pump whose discharge was routed outside through the oil tank
fill pipe hole left in the foundation when the tank was removed. A
significant reduction in humidity immediately occurred. However,
no improvement in the right cellar hole was seen even though both
cellars are conneeted by a small air space. As a result, a second
dehumidifier identical to the first was purchased for the right eellar
with its discharge routed through the bulkhead. The humidity in
both cellar holes can now be controlled. However, both maehines
must be drained and turned off in the Fall and this task should be
added to the house maintenance list. Inspection of both basements
since these improvements has shown them to be much dryer than
before.

6. STRUCTURAL DAMAGE As noted in the consultant's report,
the overhanging front girt above the kitchen summer beam was

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deeply rotted. The framework above the right side kitchen door
also had been damaged by insect activity. In addition, the right rear
water table was rotted due to poor drainage near the rear furnace
chimney. The front door threshold was cracked and the sill area
underneath was partially rotted. These particular areas were
selected for immediate attention with the other areas such as
moderate sagging of attic purlins put on watch for signs of new
movement or deterioration.

Examples of damage found in the Capen House

Aaron Sturgis visited the site and prepared a cost estimate for the
front girt and right side area above the kitchen door. Following an
on-site review he was selected as having demonstrated expertise,
reasonable cost and good reliability in working with old, fragile
structures such as the Capen House. New white oak timbers were
spliced into existing areas of the frame after the rotted areas had
been chiseled out. The front door sill was treated with preservative
and a new threshold fabricated.

7. ELECTRICAL SYSTEM UPDATE Although not included in
the consultant's report the electrical system was found to be in
serious need of updating and verification that no safety issues
existed for either the house or personnel. Upon inspection no
outlets were available in the left cellar and exposed wires were
found.

Outlets were added in both cellars with dedicated circuits in
anticipation of adding dehumidifiers. All outlets were tested for

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grounding and polarity and each branch circuit megger checked for
5000 ohms. The fused panel was checked for proper fuse sizes and
the grounding electrode reconnected.

SUMMARY

As a result of the Finch and Rose study, the Historical Society has
gained a much better understanding of the Capen House. The
study clarified how much of the building dates from the 17^^
century as well as the physical condition of the house in 2002.
Finch found several areas where the George Francis Dow
restoration of 1913 departed from the original design in favor of
what Dow liked to see in a 17^^ century house. Nevertheless, but
for Dow’s work, the house might not have survived to this day.

Finally, President Norman Isler acted promptly to repair the
damaged areas uncovered by Finch, first by organizing a fund
raising campaign, secondly by lining up contractors to do the
major repair work, and finally by personally accomplishing many
tasks with the aid of very few volunteers.

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DEDICATION OF THE MEMORIAL TO THE
TO THE WITCHCRAFT VICTIMS

1992 marked the 300^^ anniversary of the witehcraft hysteria when
three women of the Topsfield parish were hanged. Elizabeth How
and Sarah Wildes were hanged on July 19, 1692 and Mary Esty was
hanged on September 22, 1692. The Topsfield Historical Society
and the Town of Topsfield conducted a special program on the
Common on Memorial Day, May 25, 1992 to honor these three
victims by dedicating a monument in their memory . While it was a
bright sunny day, it was also one of the coldest Memorial Days in
memory.

The following citizens served
Tercentenary Committee:

Joseph Bateman
Rebecca Bateman
Joyce Bergsten
Ann Costanza
Jane Flannagan

PROGRAM

Bell Tolling

The bell of the Congregational Church will toll in memory of
those innocents who died in 1692.

Welcome by Joseph Batemam, Tercentenary Committee Chairman

Introduction of Essayist by Joyce Bergsten

Amanda Jones, a student at Masconomet Regional High
School, had written the winning essay.

“Remembering and Learning” by Amanda Jones

on the Topsfield Witchcraft

John Kimball
Dorothy Leach
Anne Peirce
Sheila Rounds

Remarks by John Kimball

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Removal of the pall over the monument by Anne Peirce
Final remarks by Joseph Bateman.

Bell tolling in memory of the three Topsfield parish women.

THE ESSAY BY AMANDA JONES

This year marks the three-hundredth year since the beginning of the
witchcraft hysteria in Essex County. In the spring of 1692, after a
long and hard winter filled with intriguing stories of voodoo told by
their servant, Tituba, two girls of Old Salem Village, Elizabeth
Parris, age nine, and Abigail Williams, age eleven, became afflicted
with mysterious symptoms. They developed seizures and made
strange noises, brought upon, said a local doctor, by a witch’s curse.
The girls named Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne, two unpopular
local women, as well as their servant as their tormentors. Tituba
escaped punishment through claiming to be similarly affected by the
two other women; Sarah Osborne died in prison; but Sarah Good
was hanged on July nineteenth, 1692. During the next three months,
times of severe cruelty and ignorance, one hundred sixty people
were accused of witchcraft, nineteen were hanged, and one was
pressed to death for refusing to plead, all based upon the accusations
of a few young girls: accusations that today would have been
dismissed as childish games and fantasy. Thinking of the suffering
that these one hundred sixty must have felt, one can feel only shame
for the stupidity with which the Salem and Topsfield citizens reacted
to the childish accusations of the girls.

It may seem odd, then, that we choose Memorial Day to remember
these people. After all, the people we usually honor on this day are
our loved ones; those who fought or died for a cause they felt was
right; heroes who are lauded and honored for their courage. Today
we celebrate our pride and love for these men and women. Why,
then would we choose to place into this category twenty people who
suffered the death of criminals, not really understanding what it was

161

that they had done wrong, in a time and place so far removed from
our own that our nation did not even exist yet?

In order to understand why this day was chosen, we must realize the
reason, besides remembrance, why we celebrate Memorial Day; that
reason is to learn. We think about the brave servicemen and women
and why they died, and in remembering them and our pain at their
loss, we hope and pray that this remembrance will teach the world
not to fight anymore, to avoid this senseless loss of lives. In
remembering the twenty condemned “witches,” we remember that
there are other ways to suffer at the hands of humans besides war.
The people accused of witchcraft were the victims of the politics of
small, isolated communities, where petty hatreds and
misunderstandings could easily become the basis for accusation. It is
interesting and important to note the names of the accusers and
accused. Mary Esty, Rebecca Nurse, Sarah Cloyce, Elizabeth How,
and Sarah Wildes, all convicted and executed, were members of
families involved in a fierce and long-standing land dispute with the
influential Putnam family of Salem Village. Ann Putnam, age
twelve, was one of the afflicted children.

The accused men and women also suffered from the ignorance of
their peers. There was so much about the world that the colonists did
not understand. If the explanation that a witch had cursed these girls
was a far-fetched one, it was certainly better than living the fear of
not knowing why the girls had behaved the way they did. Who
knows if these girls understood what they were doing, when they
made their accusations? Even children can be cruel, and vengeful,
towards someone who is hateful to them, who won’t let them have
their own way, or even someone who is just different.

We hope that this example of the dangers of human cruelty and
ignorance, which can be and have been repeated so often in our
history, will touch people and teach them to stop thoughtless
prejudice before it spirals out of their control, as it did in the case of
these young girls. Realizing later the trauma and pain that she had

162

caused, Abigail Williams, one of the first accusers, wrote a full
apology for her acts. Unfortunately, she recognized her mistake far
too late. Everyone did. Even though the names of the executed
nineteen were cleared in 1711, what did it matter? Those who cared
were long gone. Those accused of witchcraft had suffered and died
for no "good" reason, for no noble cause that can be lauded and
honored. And, as it is with war, the sort of prejudice and ignorance
that led to the witchcraft hysteria still exists today. Let us hope, on
this Memorial Day, that in remembering the victims and accusers,
and their pain, that people will ponder heavily their own reasons for
hate. Let us pray that remembrance will stop them from doing
something that they will regret, as Abigail Williams and Elizabeth
Parris did so many years ago.

We hope that this example of the dangers of human cruelty and
ignorance, which can be and have been repeated so often in our
history, will touch people and teach them to stop.

The monument on the Common

163

PRISCILLA CAPEN HERB SOCIETY

By Joyce Bergsten

In the spring of 1978 a group of women from the Topsfield
Historieal Society deeided to raise a “kitchen garden” next to the
famous Capen House. Elaine Dow was the chairman assisted by
Anne Peiree, Bunny Nutter, and Mrs. H. W. Smith, an authority on
colonial gardens, as a consultant.

The four-bed raised gardens required 2 workdays in May. Every
plant would have been well known to Priseilla Capen. Some herbs
were used for medicines, eooking dyes, repelling rodents, and
freshening rooms, cloth, or “laying out the dead”. Mrs. David
Brown served a sit down dinner. Ten women were dressed in
colonial clothing. Food was served in pewter chargers and redstone
tankards for ale or eider. On future workdays men dug postholes and
ereeted a split rail fenee around the gardens.

The Priseilla Capen Herb women began to serve tea at the gardens
in the summer of 1979. On August 15^^ Lillian Kemper and Joyee
Bergsten served 20 guests with cold borage tea (that instills courage
in those who drink it) and herbal goodies. Candlelight suppers were
started in Oetober at the Capen house for the members. By the
summer of 1981, thirty women were helping to maintain the
authentie 17^^ eentury gardens. Teas were held every Wednesday
from 2 to 4 in the summer. The women ereated herbal crafts and
charts to be sold at the Thanksgiving Boutique. A new cutting
garden was created at the baek of the house under the direction of
Ruth Ratto, Joyce Bergsten, Kathy MacGregor, Ruth Moore and
Kathy Chadwick.

In 1982 Elaine Dow wrote a book ealled Simples and worts using
herbs from the garden for her illustrations by David Workman. In
1983 the Parson Capen House celebrated its 300^*’ birthday. Elaine
and Bob Dow were the ehairmen of the five day event with the Herb
Society serving tea in the afternoons. In 1986 the Herb Soeiety

164

erected a sundial under the leadership of Kathy MacGregor. A new
shed designed by Ben Nutter was built and dedicated on September
9^^ 1991. Joyce Bergsten, president of the Herb Society, christened
it.

Dedication of the Memorial Bench May 20, 2004

Through the years the members of the Society have continued their
summer teas, held annual meetings, made crafts and charts to be
sold at the Strawberry Festival, studied about herbs as they tended
the gardens, visited other gardens for ideas, and had publicity in the
local papers. On May 20, 2004 they dedicated a Memorial Bench in
memory of Elaine Dow, Anne Peirce, and Barbara Carpenter- three
women who were the guiding light of authenticity regarding 17^^
century herbal history. At the Topsfield Expo 2006 Ann Savage and
Joyce Bergsten represented the Topsfield Historical Society and
Capen Herb Society on April 26^^ at Proctor School. Three hundred
and fifty attended this community event which featured fifty town
offices and organizations.

The Priscilla Capen Herb Society will preserve the flavors of the
past in their herb gardens and summer teas for future generations.

165

THE STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL

By Susan Turner and Helen DesChene

The First Strawberry Festival dates from 1968 and has been the
chief fund raising event for the Historical Society since that time. It
started as a social event featuring a strawberry shortcake dessert to
mark the opening of the Parson Capen House for the season on the
second Saturday in June. Between 1968 and 1976 invitations were
sent to members of the Society to buy tickets in advance but starting
in 1977, tickets were sold at the door. The dessert was served in the
downstairs room of the Parish House and in 1977 there were 511
servings. One of the highlights in the earlier years was Palmer
Lavallee arriving on horseback dressed as Parson Capen. Early on
art exhibits by local artists were featured in the upstairs room of the
Parish House. Then a silent auction was added and later a live
auction where Society members were asked to contribute treasures
thev no longer needed. Year by year new new activities were added

1980 Hayride

166

such as hayrides and pony rides for children, puppet shows, games,
and sales of plants, baked goods, books, ete by local organizations.
The Historical Society also had a table selling extra copies of

1990 Lawrence Bond autographing and selling copies
of his book Houses and Buildings of Topsfield

167

For many years the second Saturday in June proved to be a perfect
summer day so that many brides planned to have the day of their
wedding on the day of the festival. That spell has been broken a few
times in recent years, however, with a particularly hard rain one
year. Nevertheless, for over forty years now, the Society has been
very fortunate weather-wise.

The auction was abandoned in
favor of craft shows by exhibitors
from all over the area. Society
members ran out of articles they
wished to dispose of. Ruth
Glenn, who originally handled the
auction, then tuned her attention
to contacting vendors and
organizing the craft shows. She
did that for many years. The
overall festival was originally co-
chaired by Gordon and Ruth
Brandes and Thelma and Carleton
Kennerson. Ken and Debbie
Crocker took over for a few years 1990 Betty and Bill Flagg
followed by the Brandes’ daughter, square dancers

Susan Turner who served for many

years. More recently Norman Isler took over and ran it from 2003
to 2005 when it was co-chaired by Barbara Pratt.

In 1993 the Congregational Church sold the Parish House and the
hulling of the strawberries on the Friday evening preceding the
festival and the serving of the shortcake were transferred to
Fellowship Hall in the Emerson Center. When the Gould Barn was
completed in 1 997 exhibitions such as the quilt shows, which might
have been shown in the upstairs room of the Parish House, were
shown in the bam. The Strawberry Festival is a major undertaking
and some eighty- five people are typically involved, most of them
on Friday evening and on the following Saturday.

168

1989 Crafts displays as seen from a window in the Parish House

Brigitte O'Malley has handled the kitchen for many years. This job
includes ordering all of the strawberries, biscuits, lemonade,
whipped cream, paper goods, etc. Everything that has been ordered
has to be picked up the day before the festival and delivered to the
Emerson Center. Volunteers need to be recruited to help hull the
berries the night before the festival and numerous volunteers are
needed to serve shortcake, work in the kitchen, and sell shortcake
tickets on the day of the festival.

Walter Rehak has handled the hotdog concession stand for many
years. This involves ordering all of the supplies and staffing the
hotdog stand the day of the festival.

The Herb Society makes sure the herb garden is ready for the
festival and volunteers are needed to staff the Capen House for
tours.

169

Barbara Pratt now (2008) heads up the Craft Show whieh takes
months of planning and reeruiting of former and new eraft vendors.
Her job ineludes sending out craft show applications, examining
each application received, sending out acceptance or rejections
letters, setting up the layout of the craft show, etc.

Approximately 20 non-profit organizations participate in the
festival. Not only is this the Topsfield Historical Society’s biggest
fundraiser, but the perfect opportunity for these local non-profit
organizations to raise money for their organizations. The Topsfield
Historical Society has realized approximately $8,000 annually from
the Strawberry Festival in recent years (2003-2008).

170

The festival is neatly
summed up poetically by
Helen DesChene

THE STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL

There's nothing like the strawberry
As June slips into view.

They're juicy, red and succulent
And tease the palate too.

Our Topsfield folk are all a buzz
With chores for me and you.

The preparations starting

Long before the date is due. . .

Then, fragrance of an evening.

As folk gather by the score...

For hulling, crushing, sugaring. . .

Done just the night before

While biscuits by the thousands
Are split .. in readiness.

Great bowls of cream are whipping
And we pray for nothing less

Than sunshine... on the 'morrow.
Crowds converging. .. on the green

As crafts, and games ... and nifty bands
Make jovial. ..the scene!

171

In 2000 T'opsfieCd observed the 350'^ anniversary of the town's
incorporation and events were scheduled through most of the
year. lAd the programs were wed attended dhe highlight
for many people was the parade on June 17, 2000 which took
the better part of two hours to pass the reviewing stand,
possibly TbpsfieCds Congest parade.

THE 350'” ANNIVERSARY OF TOPSFIELD’S INCORPORATION

By Joyce Bergsten

The 350'^ year began with the collating of an Anniversary Events
Calendar. A brief history and old photographs per month were
organized into an interesting keepsake calendar.

In February Jan Jansen presented a multi-media photo presentation
ealled “Topsfield Then and Now”. On the one screen was the scene
as it appeared many years ago and on the other was how it appears
today. It was held in the Topsfield Library Gallery with a full
capacity audience on February 11 and 12 . The Friends of the
Library held a formal reception following the evening performance.

On March 29'^ and 30'*’ there was a Children’s Pageant ealled
“Happy Anniversary Topsfield” presented at 3 standing room only
performanees. It was an historic play written and directed by Sha
Riordan with Joyce Bergsten as historical consultant and director
assistant. There were 150 children involved through musie, art and
drama depicting the history of Topsfield beginning with the
Agawam Indians. At the evening performance the Topsfield
residents who were present and mentioned in the script were given
flowers and introduced to the audience. It was a stirring evening.

There was two May events. Fifth graders at Proctor School put on a
Memorial Day Program with patriotic songs and script for the town.
The Memorial Day Parade was held on May 29'*^. Our historic
events during these 350 years were recalled at the cemetery.

172

Homecoming Weekend began June 9^^ with an All Faith Service at
8PM organized by Joyce Bergsten. The clergy participating were
Craig Whitcher, Jeff Gill, Father Sullivan and Father Driscoll. Mark
Morgan organized the music for the service with 4 church choirs
represented. There were 200 people present who sat on the lawn in
front of the Congregational Church on the Topsfield Common with
candlelight. They all participated in the singing of hymns in this
memorable service.

His Majesty’s finest in the Parade

The 350^^ parade was held on June 11^^. At 1:00 PM streets were
closed to traffic along Main Street. The reviewing stand with
celebrities was before Proctor School. Howard “Red” Stultz was the
Grand Marshall. There were many bands, floats, marchers, clowns,
wagons, and of course the scouts. Residents and many visitors were
line up all along the route. Many thanks to all the 350 committee
and police who helped make this such a success.

The Kuszmars organized a comedy Dinner Theatre at the
Fairgrounds on June 17^^. The three Topsfield garden clubs

173

organized a Historic House and Garden Tour on June 24^^. Many
people went through the lovely old homes of Topsfield residents and
their gardens. Special thanks should be given to Darcey Fulton,
Linda Harvey, Julie Bucchiere and Joyce Bergsten who co-chaired
this event.

Topsfield Boy Scouts in the Parade

tFi

Barbara Binette was chairperson for all the July 4 events. Many
families came to the Common in the afternoon to enjoy the pony
rides, games, face painting and free ice cream. There was a great
band at the Fairgrounds in the evening. A magnificent bonfire ended
the evening. It was truly a 4^^ of July to remember.

Darcey Fulton and the Arts Council organized the Arts Festival Day
on July 1 5^^. Children to participated in many crafts set up by local
artists. There was a drama group and there were puppet shows.

The Middlesex Concert Band played on the Common on August
12^^. There was a good crowd. Mr. Rox, a local man, directed the
band. Jerry Buckley and the Kuszmars organized this event.

174

On September 30^^ was the Annual Topsfield Fair Parade with
groups from all over Essex County taking part.

Norman Isler organized a Time Capsule. This was dedicated at the
Topsfield Library on September 25^^ by State Representative
Theodore Speliotis. Many of the fourth grade compositions and
other interesting items were on display, such as photographs of the
town and a letter from President Clinton, before the capsule was
sealed. Hopefully it will be kept for 100 years in the library and
opened in 2100.

On October 3*^^ the whole town was invited to “Topsfield Night at
the Fair” from 4 to 10 PM.. Free admission, free rides, hot dogs,
coke, popcorn and free parking were provided. Yes, it was a
fantastic freebie. Best of all it was quite a night to say hello to all
your friends and neighbors and end with a gala fireworks display.

175

A lovely quilt was dedicated at the library on October \3^^. Pat
Gandt and her committee created a beautiful wall hanging quilt.
Mark Morgan had a musical program consisting of colonial ballads

176

It had been a very exciting year for all of us on the committee. After
four years of planning it was breathtaking to see how the people in
the town responded to the many activities that were offered. Thanks
to everyone who caught the spirit of the 350^^ Anniversary year.

The Committee:

Jerry Buckley, Chairman
Dick Adams
Joyce Bergsten
Barbara Binette
Darcy Fulton

Ron, Ted,

and Mary Kuszmar
Ron Kuszmar II
Judy Soffron
Norm Rutstein

177

THE STEEPLE OF THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
By Jan Jansen

The Congregational Church of Topsfield, located on the Common,
occupies a central position in town. A church has stood here since
1703 and the present edifice is the third one on this site. It is a
focal point in the community. The first meetinghouse was erected
here during the pastorate of Joseph Capen, close to his parsonage.
And a small hill was leveled for the purpose. Little is known of
that building except that the pulpit from the previous meeting-
house in the Pine Grove Cemetery area was retained.

That early building was
replaced in 1759 by a larger
building, a model of which,
made by Benjamin Ome in
1907, is on display in the
Gould Bam. A significant
addition came in 1817 when
a bell weighing 838V2
ponds, made by Revere and
Company of Boston, was
purchased for $400 and
hung in the belfry. The
town voted that “it be mng
on all public days
and tolled for funerals”.

Before 1823 there was no separation between town and parish and
the minister’s salary and church repairs were decided at town
meetings all held in the church building, known as the meeting-
house. The designation meetinghouse was retained after the town
and parish became separate entities.

By 1842 the second meetinghouse on the Common was in poor
repair and, as was the case in 1749, the decision was made to
replace it. The old building was taken down in 1842 and $222.82

Model of the 1759 meetinghouse

178

was realized in the sale of portions of the building to several
purchasers. The contract for a new building was awarded to Mark
R. Jewett of Rowley for $4,300 and the Paul Revere bell was
installed in the new belfry. While the Capen pulpit was exhibited
in the 1850 bicentennial of the town’s incorporation, all traces of
the old pulpit were lost shortly thereafter. The new building was
dedicated on February 22, 1843 during the pastorate of Rev. Anson
McLoud.

With the exception of a vestry and organ loft added in 1853, the
exterior appearance of the church remained the same until 1967
when the chancel area was redesigned requiring change in the rear
extension and an approved access to the rear balcony in the church
called for the addition of 4-ft wings on the north and south sides of
the building. A handicap entrance was added at a later time.

During the last half century problems have surfaced and have been
dealt with in ways nicely described in the church’s internet
website, www.topsfieldchurch.org . Much of what follows is taken
directly from that write-up.

The meetinghouse project addressed structural issues identified in
the attic, tower, belfiy, and spire as well as exterior sheathing
issues on the main facade and steeple rot and missing or damaged
decorative elements. One component of this project was the
removal, restoration, and reinstallation of the spire. As testimony
to the craftsmanship of the builders of the meetinghouse, the spire
survived over 100 years before it needed repair. During the past
50 years repairs using steel supports and “band-aid” efforts have
led to further deterioration. This project redressed the unfortunate
repairs of recent years which were occasioned by financial
constraints. This time the steeple was rebuilt in keeping with the
original structural integrity and thereby giving it a long-lasting
future life. Necessary repairs were also made to the cradle of the
Paul Revere bell.

179

The church commissioned the preservation firm of Finch and Rose
(the same firm that did a similar study of the Capen House) to
make an assessment of what needed to be done to restore this
historic building. The key word here is restoration. Restoring the
building made the church eligible for grants from several
organizations including

$50,000 from the Massachusetts Historical Commission,
$15,000 from the Topsfield Historical Society Kimball Fund,
$7,500 from the Essex National Heritage Commission, and
$5,000 from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

It was determined that the best approach from both historical and
economic points of view was to restore the meetinghouse to its
structural integrity using materials ans construction techniques
with which it was built originally. Preservation Timber Framing,
Inc of Eliot, Maine headed by Aaron Sturgis, was awarded the
contract. The same firm participated in the Gould Bam and Capen
House projects.

Examples of “band-aid” repairs and deterioration

Water infiltration has led to rot and paint deterioration of the
steeple and the main fa9ade. More specifically there has been the
discovery of rotted beams in the base of the tower, lack of positive
connections between the tower posts and roof tmsses, poor
drainage conditions at the floor of the belfry, rotted timbers in the

180

belfry roof and floor, over-
stressed members in the roof
truss that supports the tower
posts, and defects in the joists
supporting the plaster ceiling
in the nave. The belfry and
the steeple tilted to the north
caused by rot in the southeast
comer of the belfry framing.

The main fa9ade pediment
and portico had suffered from Water damage

water infiltration and rot in places

and required intense refurbishment. Also in need of restoration
were decorative elements on the exterior of the belfry including a
gothic balustrade, ballflowers, and four small spires.

Taking down the steeple and belfry

On July 28, 2006 the spire came down, followed by the Paul
Revere bell, and the belfry. A large crowd witnessed the
procedure and Maine Street was closed to traffic from 9 AM to
1 PM. The operation was carried out with the aid of a large crane
positioned on the walk leading into the church. While
considerable advance work had been done to prepare for this event,
the final separation of the steeple and belfry from the rest of the
building was completed just before lift-off All this took some
time, but was handled very efficiently. The whole operation
proceeded very smoothly by an expert crew.

181

The Paul Revere bell

The crane and steeple staging

The steeple and belfry were lowered to the lawn in front of the
church where a covered workshop had been set up. All repair

182

work was carried out in the weeks that followed. The Paul Revere
bell was loaded on a flat bed truck which was driven to a place
where all could see the bell. Later the bell in its cradle was taken
to a safe storage plaee. Lastly, a cover was positioned over the
opening where the bell had been.

All summer long and into the fall work proceeded on the Common,
in the eovered shop on the Common, and in the church. Finally, on
November 6 all was in readiness to reassemble the component
parts, and this again called for the crane.

The capped steeple

183

In the spring of 2007 repairs were made to the church exterior
followed by a complete paint job. Now, with a vertical steeple,
and pristine white surfaces, the Congregational Church of
Topsfield again graces the Common of one of New England’s
prettiest villages.

The Congregational Church of Topsfield

February 2008

184

THE TOPSFIELD TOWN HALL CLOCK

By Robert Winship and Norman Isler

The Town Hall Clock

The Town Hall Clock was purchased in 1879 from the George M.
Stevens Company for $325.00 through the efforts of the Topsfield
Drama Club. Since the town hall was built in 1874 there was no
clock for the first five years of its existence. To raise clock funds
the club produced plays, some of which were likely held in the
town hall's second floor auditorium.

George Stevens began manufacturing clocks in 1864 in Boston.

He came from Maine and lived in Cambridge. For fifty years the

185

company focused upon the manufacture and sale of public clocks
and also fog bell and fire alarm equipment. They competed
successfully against the industry leader, E Howard & Co. An
article in the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors
Bulletin of April 1994 mentions the company manufactured 22
tower clocks from 1864 to 1916, of which 6 model 3A’s remain,
one of which is the Topsfield clock

For its first 124 years the clock relied upon volunteers to climb up
the unlighted and unheated staircase and rewind it every eight
days. This regular winding did not always occur and by 1989 the
clock was no longer operating until Edwin Bowerman was
appointed keeper. Bowerman adjusted the mechanism and kept it
wound until 1996-97 when Dick Adams took his place. By 2000
the clock again ceased operation due to Adam's death.

In June, 2002 the selectmen
appointed Bob Winship and
Norm Isler Keepers of the
Clock. At that time Winship
was Chairman of the Finance
Committee and Norm was
President of the Historical
Society. Both were retired
engineers. Isler in turn
recruited Bill Toth, a retired
MIT Draper Lab engineer and
clock fancier, who had
rejuvenated the Town of
Leominster's clock. Isler read
of Toth's accomplishment and
contacted him through the
newspaper's editor. The three
of them, working as a team, put Topsfield's clock back in working
order. Toth repaired the escapement mechanism bushings and
journals in his Bolton, MA basement work shop while Winship

Part of stairway to the clock

186

and Isler refinished the clock hands with gold leaf. They also wrote
a winding system specification and sought a vendor to meet it.
The concept was for the system to drive the clock through its own
mechanism by providing an electric drive to turn the shaft
previously turned by a hand crank.

The Regulator Time Company of Manhattan, Kansas was selected
to supply the winding
mechanism; however upon
receipt of the equipment and
wiring diagram it was
determined to be inadequate
in several respects;
principally in the system’s
logic which would have
maintained system operation
even through a limit switch
failure mode. The time
delay relay's switching
capacity to turn off the drive
motor was also found to be
inadequate. The vendor was
not responsive to either
concern. Winship and Isler
redesigned the system to
overcome both short-
comings while still using
nearly all of the original
components.

The system works as shown
in this simplified diagram. As the clock runs the weight slowly
descends and on reaching POSITION 1 the clock would stop
except at that point a relay operates to apply power to the motor to
bring the weight up again. When the weight reaches POSITION 2
two things happen; (1) power to the motor is turned off and (2) a

187

time delay cireuit operates. This is a safety feature. Normally the
time delay does nothing, but in the event that the motor power is
not shut off when the weight reaehes POSITION 2 a relay
assoeiated with the delay circuit turns off the power to the entire
system after a very short time interval and a red light comes on in a
control panel and stays on. The clock will continue to run for
about a week because the weight will slowly head for POSITION
1 . In the meanwhile the Keeper of the Clock can investigate the
problem.

The final step in the clock renovation project was to install a light
to illuminate the clock and tower facing the street. With the help
of Bill Farum, town resident and lighting consultant, a narrow
beam 150 watt spotlight was specified and ordered. It was mounted
on the main trunk of a spruce tree in front of town hall utilizing a
conveniently located opening in its branches that provided an
unobstructed light path to the tower.

Cost of the light was underwritten by the Historical Society and
Nippy Wells, a local resident who was interested in the project.
The light was installed in the fall of 2004 by Winship and Isler
working with Park & Cemetery personnel.

Funding for the renovation/winding project came from two
sources; Sue Kimball, widow of Jack Kimball, and the Topsfield
Historical Society. Mr. Kimball had been Town Moderator for 28
years as well as a Society Director for many years. No town funds
were used for this project. A plaque commemorating the clock's
rebirth in memory of Kimball was created and hangs in the Town
Hall alongside those of other figures who have made a lasting
contribution to the town.

188

JOHN KIMBALL JR. MEMORIAL TRUST

By Nomian Isler

The John Kimball Jr. Memorial Trust was organized on January
27, 2004 by and between the Topsfield Historical Society and
Richard (Rick) Kimball, Susanne Kimball and Norman Isler as the
initial trustees. Its purpose is to honor John Kimball, Jr.’s lifetime
tradition of success by creating a program to provide scholarships,
books, tuition and other educational and research expenses to both
graduate and undergraduate students, college, university and
graduate school instructors, professors and others who have
excelled in and/or have a passion for the study of history and
related disciplines and who reside in or have a substantial
connection with Topsfield.

Mr. Kimball was bom in Wakefield, Massachusetts and lived in
Topsfield for 43 years before moving to California in 2001 to be
near his children. Upon graduating from Dartmouth in December
of 1942 he joined the U.S. Marine Corps, serving as a fighter pilot
during World War II and the Korean Conflict. He was awarded the
Distinguished Flying Cross and retired from the reserves in 1964
with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He graduated from Harvard
Law School in 1948 and in 1952 joined the Boston law firm of
Hale and Dorr where he practiced law as a distinguished trial
attorney for 34 years, becoming a partner in 1964. Early in his
career he served as assistant counsel to Joseph Welch, chief
counsel for the U. S. Army, during the Army- McCarthy hearings.

Mr. Kimball cared very much about Topsfield and was very active
in town affairs, serving as Town Moderator for 28 years. He was a
member of the Historic District Commission and a long time
director of the Topsfield Historical Society and several other
organizations. He died in 2003 and is survived by his wife,
Susanne, children Sara, Richard and Margo, and two grand-
children, Jacklyn and Ryan.

189

Administration of the scholarship program is undertaken by the
Topsfield Historical Society. Initial funding was provided by Rick
(Richard) Kimball in the form of restricted Netflix and Altiris
stock which was sold in March/ April 2004 for a total of
$497,187.48. This amount was then placed in a Vanguard Money
Market account while a financial advisory committee was
organized by Isler of society members having investment
experience or interest in financial matters. This appointed
committee operates under guidelines approved by the society
directors and meets quarterly or whenever a committee member
feels a need to convene a special meeting. The committee’s
purpose is to provide investment advice to the society. Both the
society president and treasurer are non voting members of the
committee.

Appendix I reproduces the charter of the trust, while Appendix II
outlines the operating procedures of the Financial Advisory
Committee.

$62,621 has been awarded to 28 applicants since the founding of
the trust in 2004 through July 2008 and, thanks to the advice
offered by the financial advisory committee, the principal as of
June 27, 2008 was $507,339.00.

Applicants may apply by writing a letter of request to the John
Kimball Jr. Memorial Scholarship Program, do the Topsfield
Historical Society, PO Box 323, Topsfield, MA 01983. A letter of
request form is located on the society’s web site
www.topsfieldhistorv.org .

190

APPENDIX I

THE JOHN KLMBALL,, JR. MEMORIAL TRUST
ARTICLE I CREATION OF THE TRUST

1.1 Trust Agreement.

This Trust Agreement is entered into by and between THE TOPSFIELD
HISTORICAE SOCIETY, as grantor (the "Grantor"), and RICHARD
KIMBALL, SUSANNE KIMBALL and NORMAN ISLER. as the initial
trustees. All references to the "Trustee" shall refer, to the initial Trustees and
their successors in interest.

1.2 Name.

The name of this Trust shall be The John Kimball, Jr. Memorial Trust. The Trust
is dated January 27, 2004

1.3 Purpose.

The Trust will honor John Kimball, Jr.'s lifetime tradition of success by creating
and administering a scholarship program to be known as The John Kimball, Jr.
Scholarship for the Study of History (the "Scholarship Program"). The purposes
of the Scholarship Program are to provide:

(a) scholarships and grants for tuition, books and other educational and research
expenses,

(b) to undergraduate students, graduate students and college, university and
graduate school instructors and professors;

(e) who have excelled in and/or have a passion for the study of history and
related disciplines, and

(d) who reside in, or have a substantial connection to, Topsfield, Massachusetts.

1.4 Initial Funding.

The initial property contributed to the Trust by the Grantor as of the date hereof
was restricted Netflex and Altiris stock sold in March/ April 2004 for
$497,187.48.

1.5

Additional Funding.

191

Any person may add property to the Trust by any appropriate legal means
provided that the Trustee may reject any property that he or she deems
inappropriate.

ARTICLE 2 ADMINISTRATION OF THE TRUST

2.1 Distribution of Income.

The Trustee shall add one fourth (1/4) of the annual net income of the Trust to
principal. The remaining three-fourths (3/4) of the net income of the Trust shall
be applied to and used in connection with the Scholarship Program. To the
extent that such remaining net income is not so used in that year, it shall be
added to principal.

2.2 Distribution of Principal.

Principal may be applied to and used in connection with the Scholarship
Program so long as three Trustees are serving and such Trustees unanimously
determine that such application and use is clearly necessary in any year to
further the goals of the Scholarship Program.

2.3 Allocations between Principal and Income.

The determination of what is principal or income and any apportionment or
allocation of income, gains and expenses (including compensation) between
principal and income shall be determined by the Trustee in his or her reasonable
discretion.

2.4 Distribution of Trust Corpus on Termination.

Upon termination of the Trust as provided for in Article 6, all of the Trust
corpus will be distributed to the Topsfield Historical Society (or to its
successor in interest or, if none, to another regional historical society selected by
the Trustee).

ARTICLE 3 ADMINISTRATION OF THE SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

The Trustees shall have broad discretion to develop and adopt policies and
procedures to govern all material decisions relating to the Scholarship Program
(e.g., application requirements, dollar amount of individual and annual awards,
selection criteria, publicity, deciding against awards in years without qualified
applicants, ensuring scholarship or grant does not reduce other financial aid or
scholarships, etc.), and to amend such policies and procedures from time to time.

192

ARTICLE 4 THE OFFICE OF TRUSTEE

4.1 Appointment of T rustees.

The Trust shall have three (3) Trustees. The initial Trustees shall be RICHARD
KIMBALL. SUSANNE KIMBALL and NORMAN ISLER If any Trustee
becomes unwilling or unable to ser\ e as a Trustee (including by reason of death,
disability, resignation or removal), the other Trustees shall appoint in writing
another Trustee to serve as successor. In the event that Trustees are unable to
agree on the selection of a successor Trustee, the Kimball family Trustee, see
below, shall have final appointment authority. Notwithstanding anything herein
to the contrary, until such successor Trustee is appointed and ser\^ing, except as
provided for in Section 2.2, the remaining Trustees shall have and be permitted
to exercise all of the powers which the Trustees hereunder would have had if no
vacancy had occurred. Successor Trustees may be individuals or corporations
provided that at all times during the duration of the Trust, at least one of the
three Trustees shall be a descendant of John J. Kimball, Jr. and one of the three
Trustees shall be an elected officer of the Topsfield Historical Society (or its
successor in interest or, if none, of a regional historical society selected by the
Trustees).

4.2 Resignation or Removal of a Trustee.

,\ny Trustee may resign at any time by delivering written notice of his or her
resignation to the other Trustees. Any Trustee, other than Susanne Kimball or
Richard Kimball, may be remo\ ed for cause upon the vote of the other Trustees
by the delivery of written notice to the removed Trustee. For this purpose, the
term "cause" shall mean the conviction or plea of nolo contendere to a felony, or
any other act of dishonesty or willful misconduct that may have a material
adverse affect on the Trust or its reputation. In addition to the foregoing, any
Trustee may be removed upon the vote of the other Trustees by delivery of
written notice to the removed Trustee if such Trustee is mentally incapacitated
and cannot reasonably carry out the duties of a trustee. Such resignation or
remo\ al shall take effect on the thirt\'-first day after the date the notice was
delivered.

4.3 Professional Assistance to Trustees.

The Trustee is authorized to employ and pay reasonable compensation to any
custodian, investment advisor, scholarship administrator, educational consultant,
attorney, accountant or other agent to assist the Trustee in administering the
Trust.

193

4.4 Decisions of Trustees.

If two Trustees are serving, all decisions shall be unanimous, and if more than
two Trustees are serving, the decisions of the majority shall control.

4.5 Exculpatory Provisions.

The Trustee and his or her estate (each, or collectively as the context requires, an
"Indemnified Party"), shall not be responsible for, and the Trust shall hold the
Indemnified Party harmless from and against, any and all claims, demands,
causes of action, liabilities, losses, costs and expenses, including costs of suit
and reasonable attorneys' fees arising out of, from, or in connection with any
action taken or -not taken, or any exercise or failure to exercise in good faith any
discretion granted him or her, by the Trustee under this Agreement, unless that
act or failure to act or exercise or failure to exercise any discretion, constitutes
gross negligence or willful misconduct. No Trustee shall be liable for any acts or
omissions to act committed by any predecessor or successor Trustee. This
provision shall survive the period during which the Trustee is acting under this
Agreement. No Trustee shall be required to provide a bond or surety for his or
her performance hereunder.

4.6 Reasonable Compensation.

The Trustee shall be entitled to reimbursement of reasonable expenses incurred
in connection with his or her activities on behalf of the Trust.

ARTICLE 5 POWERS OF THE TRUSTEE

The Trustee is vested with the broadest powers conferred on trustees under the
laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The enumeration of the following
specific investment powers shall not be construed to otherwise limit the
Trustees' broad general powers. Subject only to his or her fiduciary obligations
and to the creation of an investment strategy expressly designed to further the
purposes of the Trust, the Trustee shall be vested with and shall have all the
rights, powers and privileges that.an absolute owner of property would have,
including the power to hold any property (even if concentrated, unproductive or
property otherwise reasonably considered inappropriate as a trust investment)
and invest and reinvest the Trust principal and income, if accumulated, and to
use it to buy or otherwise acquire every kind of property and to make every kind
of investment, specifically including but not limited to interest-bearing accounts;
corporate obligations of every kind; bonds, debentures, mortgages, deeds of
trust, mortgage participations, and notes; real estate; preferred and common
stock, including stock of any corporate Trustee; mortgage participations; shares

194

of in\ estment trusts, investment companies, venmre capital and private equity
funds, murnal funds and common trust funds; general partnerships; limited
paitnerships (as either a general or limited partner); limited liability companies;
limited liability partnerships; and any other property of any type, as the Trustee,
in his or her discretion, may select.

ARTICLE 6 TERMINATION

The Trust shall terminate in 150 years (unless it is required to terminate sooner
under Massachusetts law in which case the Trust will terminate on the
legally-required termination date) Notwithstanding tbe foregoing, the Trustees
in their discretion may terminate the Trust earlier at any time that the principal
of the Trust is less than $25,000.

ARTICLIE 7 GOVERNING LAW

The Trust shall be governed by the law of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

APPENDIX II FINANCIAL ADVISORY GROUP

This Group is appointed by the President of the Society consisting of at least
three Society members in good standing having background or interest in
financial matters and who agree to ser\^e a minimum of one year. Its purpose is
to advise the Board of Directors on Society asset management. The Group may
also serve to advise the Trustees of the Kimball Memorial Fund.

The Chairman is chosen by the President from the Group members. A quorum is
2/3 of the regular members for any recommendation to be made to the Board.
The Society President, Treasurer and Assistant Treasurer are ex-officio (do not
vote) members of the Group. The President (or Treasurer in the president's
absence) has the authority to act on a Group recomm^endation for the Board if
time does not permit awaiting the Board's next regular meeting.

In carrying, out their responsibilities the Group is guided by the current
investment policy approved by the Board as set forth below. The Group
provides investment counseling to the Executive Board. In so doing it will: (1)
review the Society's portfolio and cash balance at least quarterly, (2)
recommend changes in the portfolio and cash balance to the Executive Board
and (3) suggest changes in the investment policy.

195

INVESTMENT POLICY
Statement of Intent

It is the intention of the Society in adopting this policy to set prudent limits for
both asset allocation and asset quality. While it is the desire of the Society to
maximize the return on assets available for investment, the express intent of the
board is to be conservative. Potential market risk should be a factor in asset class
allocation considerations.

Policy

All funds of the Society are the fiduciary responsibility of the Board of
Directors. The Board's policy should reflect the organization's financial status
and philosophy regarding the investment of assets. In carrying out its
responsibilities, the Board will consider the advice and counsel provided by the
Financial Advisory Group .Both the Board and the Group will act in accordance
with the bylaws, all applicable laws and regulations and the policies, if any,
attached to this document.

Policy modification

This policy is to be reviewed and possibly revised at least annually by the Board
to ensure it adequately reflects the organization's philosophy and the capital
markets.

Definitions

Money Market Securities (or cash) are invested in funds that maintain a fixed
price (Net Asset Value) of $1. As such, this type of instrument is not subject to
day-to-day price fluctuations. Funds so deposited are available daily on demand,
usually until noon, and pay interest monthly.

Equity Securities represent an ownership interest, or the right to acquire an
ownership interest, in an issuer. Different types of equity securities provide
different voting and dividend rights and priority in case of bankruptcy of the
issuer. Equity securities include common stocks, preferred stocks, convertible
securities and warrants.

Fixed Income Securities are used by issuers to borrow money. The issuer pays a
fixed, variable, or floating rate of interest, and must repay the amount borrowed
at the maturity of the security. Some debt securities, such as zero coupon bonds,
do not pay current interest but are sold at a discount from their face values.

196

Fixed-income securities include corporate debt securities, convertible bonds,
government securities, and mortgage and other asset backed securities.

Credit Quality

For Fixed-Income Securities, assets judged to be "investment grade” are
defined as those which have a rating Baa or better by Moody’s and/or Standard
& Poor's rating services. At time of purchase, securities for the Society account
must be rated at least Baa by both services. Rating, downgrades by either
serv ice will subject holdings to watch list status, and immediate review. Unless
expressly recommended otherwise by the Committee, an individual bond that
falls below investment grade status by either standard should be completely
liquidated.

Y or Equity Securities, market capitalization must be at least $2 billion at time of
purchase and, if a mutual fund, its rating must be at least a 4star as rated by
Momingstar. While no minimum holding is required, it is expected that no asset
will represent a amount smaller than 0.5% of the equity portfolio. No individual
equity holding should be more than 5.0% of the equity portfolio when
purchased, and should never exceed 7.5% of total equities. These restrictions do
not apply to mutual fund holdings.

Permissible Investments

United States Treasuries
Government Agency Obligations
Money Market Mutual Funds

Certificates of Deposit issued by Federally insured lending, institutions
Bond Mutual Fund
Individual Equities
Corporate Bonds rated "A" or higher
Equity Mutual Funds- Domestic
Equity Mutual Funds- Foreign
Limited Partnerships
Covered Calls

Prohibited Investments

Short Sales

Purchases of letter stock, private placements or direct payments
Leveraged Transactions
Purchases of securities not readilv marketable
Commodities transactions

197

Puts, straddles, or strategies other than covered calls

Purchases of oil and gas properties, or other natural resource related properties
Futures, use of margin, or investments in any derivatives not explicitly
permitted in this policy statement

Investments by investment managers in their own securities, their affiliates, or
subsidiaries

Gifts

Gift investments will be governed by the intent of the donor. If no investment
vehicle is specified the Group will decide on the type of investment. The
investment and its appreciation will be separately identified and used for the
purpose defined by the donor. If no purpose is specified the gift shall be used for
long term investment and in no case for day to day operations.

Use of Outside Investment Consultants

This policy neither promotes nor prohibits the use of outside investment
consultants or managers. The Financial Advisory Group is authorized to
negotiate arrangements for their use if it deems advisable. The actual
engagement would require the approval of the Executive Board. Outside
consultants or managers would be subject to the provisions of this policy
statement.

Conflicts of Interest

It is the responsibility of each group member to fully disclose a conflict of
interest or the "Appearance" of a conflict regarding any matter on the agenda of
the Financial Advisory Group.

The following specific restrictions apply:

A) The Financial Advisory Group shall not purchase securities from a
firm with which a Group member is affiliated.

B) Investments will not be purchased from or sold to any member of
the Society's Board of Directors.

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